Naomi's Tale
by mynameislizzie2
Summary: A story of love, betrayal and revenge. A story about the aftermath of Naomis cheating and Emilys pay back with Mandy. But also a story about redemption. You might want to bring tissues for the first half? AU obviously...right after the rooftop.
1. Chapter 1

Naomi

In the end, it was me who finished it.

In the end, it was Emily who made it impossible for me not to.

Now those are the cold, hard facts. What led up to it is a long and painful story. So be prepared. It started with a cold, windy rooftop at dawn. Well I suppose thats not entirely true either, and if I'm going to get this all out, I might as well be truthful from the start.

OK...it _actually_ started with an open day at Goldsmiths Uni in London during the summer after the Love Ball. Goldsmiths was the glittering prize I had promised myself after the slog that was my A levels. Three A's actually, and even then, I only squeaked in through admissions. But that was later...after the storm...

I met 'her' outside, before the meet and greet. Emily thought I was visiting relatives in London. I didn't like lying to her, but Emily's plans were all decided, and I don't remember agreeing to any of it. Not that the idea of travelling with her on a gap year wasn't appealing...its just I had never planned on a gap year at all. A levels, first class degree, maybe a post grad Masters, then into politics via an internship. Simple. The 'plan' actually _was_ written on the back of an envelope, in my bedside table, but Emily hadn't even glanced at it all summer. She was so caught up in her own plans, her escape from her mother and sister...she hadn't asked me much at all. I was just the plus one on the tickets.

OK, wall to wall sex, partying and drugs didn't leave much time for deep discussion, but it would have been nice to have been asked. Bit like her moving in here. One minute we were shiny new girlfriends, next thing she was my pajamas. Not that I'm complaining about the fit of that nightwear, but like I said, it would have been nice to have been asked...about anything actually.

Anyway...the open day...As I said, 'she' tapped me on the shoulder outside the college entrance, and after we chatted for a while, I found myself telling her things I really shouldn't have. Like I felt trapped by Emily's cheerful certainties. Like my life was being controlled remotely these days...and, fatally, as it turned out...in more than one way...like I quite fancied this dark haired, blue eyed girl who obviously wanted me. The train ride home was a blur of anticipation and fear. I touched her hand, she stroked mine back with a nervous finger. I smiled at her, she licked her lips. My stomach flipped at her shy stare, she batted her long lashes. The deal was pretty much done before we left the carriage. One chaste kiss, brief and full of promise and I was suddenly and overwhelmingly intoxicated by her differences. Blue eyes instead of brown, tall and slim instead of small and curvy...and her breasts...oh yeah, her breasts. I'm not kidding myself that those full and unfettered tits didn't cry out to me for exploration. By the time we crashed through my blue front door, still holding hands, it would have taken a welcoming committee of Emily, Katie and my mum combined to stop the inevitable happening.

We didn't use 'our' bed to have sex...even in my aroused and reckless state, I wasn't ready to cross _that_ boundary... But after the first feverish open mouthed kisses in the hall, her top came off, and I was like a starving man presented with a Queens banquet...where to start? Kisses turned to urgent mutual touching. When she found my wetness, she groaned as if she was in pain. When I slipped two fingers inside her, it was like the first time I fucked Emily all over again. Sophia obviously had some girl experience, because she wanted it _all_. Not just a frantic finger fuck on the couch, she wanted more. We ended up on the carpeted floor, naked in front of the hissing gas fire. I tasted her, and moaned in satisfaction at the unfamiliar tart flavour. So similar, but so different to the only other sex I had lapped. Her sighs, moans and movements were different too. When Sophia came, I actually laughed. She was so helpless and frantic in her need to finish, so unlike Emily. For once, I felt back in control. When she wanted to return the favour, I let her without question, eagerly watching her hungry mouth devour me. My own orgasm was strong and delicious. We did it again ten minutes later. I enjoyed it just as much, I won't lie...she licked me almost better than Emily had...not more skilful, just...more eager...I guess.

We rested on the couch, still naked...still touching each others warm skin. I didn't love her...not even a little bit...but that made it easier. No consequences, no emotional attachment. Or so I thought then. Stupid me. I thought I was being a bit like Cook. Fucking a random. He picked them up and discarded them like empty sweet wrappers. I had no plans to copy him to that extent, but surely this proved two things, didn't it? I was definitely gay...its not like I was cheating with a guy, was it? Cook had been trying to get his dick inside me from the very first day we met. And didn't it _prove_ that I still had control of my life? Fucking Sophia was supposed to reinforce my independence. Not that any of the above was remotely close to the truth.

Afterward, of course, came the crushing guilt and fear of discovery.

When she'd finally left...and boy, was I scared she would never go. Emily was due back at 6...and I only got a clingy and reluctant Sophia out of the door at 5.30. She turned out to be a limpet. Well, she turned out to be a _lot_ of things I wasn't expecting. Suicidal, bunny boiling, obsessive. Pick your adjective. Anyway. I showered quickly and cleaned my teeth twice. The thought of Emily... _my_ Emily, smelling Sophia's orgasms on my lips almost drove me frantic. As it turned out, she was so distracted when she came in...(Katie had had a 'shoe crisis' whatever the fuck one of those is)...that she didn't notice my anxiety at all, which made it worse, strangely.

My relief at not immediately being found out was short lived, of course. Later, after Cook dealt me the MDMA, and I, in a fit of panic that the increasingly stalkerish Sophia would reveal all to Emily, gave her a substantial chunk of my stash to keep her quiet. Whereupon, after spotting me and Emily kissing on the stairs, she climbed to the top of the gangway over the dance floor at Thomas's club night, and bashed her brains out on the concrete floor below. Everyone was shocked and saddened. But I caught Cooks eye as he hung over the railing, trying to see who the ex clubber was, and he _knew_. He knew it from my face. Emily, of course didn't. At least not then.

Later, days later...as we stood on that windy rooftop, me desperate, Emily sick with fear at what she was about to find out...I realised that _I_ was the clueless one. I'd played with fire, and got totally scorched.

" _You've ruined it_ "

" _You don't want anyone to care_ "

" _Everything's so...fragile...didn't you know that?_ "

" _We were special_ "

Those phrases cut into me like a surgeons scalpel. All bitterly true...apart from the not caring bit, obviously.

I found out I did care...enough to beg her pitifully. On the rooftop, and afterwards, when she came back to the house. Well, came back isn't very accurate. She lived under my mothers roof, that was all. At first it was just so raw...she wouldn't even speak to me...even to ask for the salt at dinner. We slept 'together', her in the double bed we had shared every night since she moved in...me on the put you up bed against the wall. So not really together at all. Anyway, I spent most nights sleepless, arms round my knees, watching her sleep.

After a month, we had progressed to short sentences. She still shied away from any semblance of physical contact. Her eyes weren't as permanently red as mine. I guess she did her crying early on in the car crash formerly known as our failed relationship. I seemed to have a permanent tap going behind my eyes. She rarely looked at me directly, just sideways, like she had on the roof, when she walked away from me. My cry of " _I was scared_ " dismissed abruptly by her then. She was right, I _am_ always scared.

And then there was that fucking barbecue. Her tormenting of me with the blonde random. The forced kiss in the kitchen, which felt like a punch in the stomach. My confession to sleeping with 'the dead girl' . My phrasing of that could have done with a bit more care...she wasn't actually dead when I slept with her. And the unwanted dip in the paddling pool. Not my finest hour. Or Emily's.

That night I tried to make it right, for about the 50th time. When she got back from her old house, I had made chilli...one of her favourites. A bottle of her favourite Chateauneuf stood opened on the checkered kitchen table.

When she came in I thought for a second she was going to let me talk. Fat chance.

"I've already eaten..." she said flatly, eyeing my culinary efforts "Pizza...with my _family_ " I caught the bitter inflection in her words.

"Right" I thought "That would be the family which comprehensively disowned you not long ago...hence your presence here... _that_ family"

But I didn't say it. I had no right any more.

"Oh" I said quietly "But I cooked it specially for you" Stupid, I know. That much was obvious.

"Should have asked" she breezed, swallowing a mouthful of wine from my glass and hunting for her bag.

"Going out...with my friends...don't wait up...I might not be back until tomorrow" she said indifferently. My stomach clenched at the casual cruelty in that sentence.

Like _thats_ the sort of thing couples say to each other all the time, isn't it? Well, maybe couples like us. Where one half has fucked up...spent weeks trying to make it right, and then, like a beam of torchlight in a dark room, the realization comes that the phrase " _I'll do anything_ " is utterly meaningless. It only has meaning if there is an end result. I knew right then that I was utterly wasting my time. I was a useful, if unimportant means to an end. I cooked, cleaned, worried and waited, but in all those weeks, not a single flicker of redemption came my way. We were no further along than the day she first found out about my treachery. She hated me, loathed me even.

A bit of the old Naomi Campbell still resided inside this skinny, over medicated body and I realised at that moment she would never forgive me...not like this anyway. She slept here, ate here, and kept her clothes here. I was nothing to her. Nothing any more, at least.

And so I took some control back. Not like with Sophia...That sort of 'control' burns too brightly..

I waited until Emily had left, then noticed she'd left her phone on the side. I had _never_ checked her phone, even when we were 'together'.

But this day I did.

Four messages and two voice mails. Very informative, all of them. She hadn't even bothered to set a PIN.

All from one person too. Mandy. Her 'straight' friend. The cold realization that Mandy was anything but straight hit me like a bullet.

The girl she said was just a friend. Just platonic friend. Not according to the evidence I was looking at.

" _Babe...missing you...need my Emily kisses tonight?_ "

" _You're such a tease Fitch...come back and finish what you started last night"_

Every message, every text a dagger in my heart. Straight, my fucking arse.

The fresh tears in my eyes were wiped away savagely. I'd been feeding my addiction to Emily Fitch on false promises. Promises I had made myself. When Emily rushed back ten minutes later, hunting for the missing phone, I handed it to her without comment, well apart from one sentence.

"I"m going over to visit Effy in Bath" I lied "Probably stay over until tomorrow afternoon at Antheas. Lock up when you come in, Ems?"

I saw the small flash of interest in her eyes at the prospect of having the place to herself. I guess it must be awkward when your cheating ex stays home a lot getting hammered, putting the brakes on your sex life with your new lover. I could see Emily had taken the bait without hesitation. I had no doubt Mandy would be spending the night here.

After Emily left, I packed an entirely superfluous overnight bag and took my toothbrush from the bathroom. I actually spent that night on Brandon Hill. Alone, in the dark...on a bench, huddled against the cold in a musty car blanket I found under the stairs, drinking steadily from a litre of cheap vodka and smoking the last of my weed.

At 8 am the next morning, I woke, hungover and cold, still wrapped in the blanket. I got a bus to the bottom of the hill near my house, and trudged up to the familiar blue door. The upstairs bedroom curtains were half open. I let myself in silently. As I picked my way along the hall, items of female clothing were scattered along it. Must have been a heavy night..no time to pick up your dress or underwear, I thought. My head already knew what my heart dreaded when I climbed the stairs one at a time, avoiding the third step, with its annoying creak.

Standing outside 'my' bedroom, I caught the low murmur of voices, then Emily's brief deep chuckle. My heart sank even further as I carefully gripped the brass door handle. Taking a deep breath, I pushed it open without making a sound.

I could describe every tiny detail of that scene from memory afterwards. They weren't shagging, although by the smell of sex in there, there had been plenty of that too. They were lying top to tail on the bed, Emily facing away from the headboard, At each end was an open laptop in front of them. Revision, then. That's innocent enough, I hear you say, if a little intimate for platonic friends to be doing it on a bed... **my** fucking bed..

But _naked_ platonic friends? Maybe not so innocent. I had the time to notice the abundance of smooth flesh on show. The contrast of Emily's pale skin beside Mandy's darker Asian complexion. The easy way they lay there, comfortably naked together. This wasn't the first time they had been like this. 'This' comes later, after you're properly together. Again the sickening thump inside my chest as I understood this had been going on for a good while...all the time I had been grovelling, pleading...hoping.

Is it strange that I found this scene more profoundly upsetting than if I had found them going at it? Well, it was. Finding your girlfriend making out with another woman is shattering. Finding her in 'your' bed...casually enjoying some post coital study time...naked, with her new lover? I found that more heartbreaking than I thought I would ever feel. My whole body ached with cold despair.

I stood in the doorway for a couple more seconds before Mandy noticed me. She blinked in disbelief, then nudged an absorbed Emily in the side, before sliding off the bed, clutching at a discarded dressing gown on the floor. With a nauseous lurch, my brain told me it was _my_ dressing gown. She was even borrowing my clothes.

Emily looked up at me with a blank disbelieving stare. Her brown eyes wide with shock.

" _Naomi_...?" she stuttered..,"you're back...but..."

I felt my mouth settle into a thin frozen smile. It was like they were waiting for a bomb to go off. I steadied my shaking body, and drew a deep breath before speaking.

"You..." I said, pointing at Mandy "Get dressed...in your _own_ fucking clothes and get the hell out of my house. If you're not gone in 30 seconds, I'm coming down to the kitchen and finding the biggest knife in the drawer...and that's not a threat...its a stone cold promise"

She got up quickly and ran past me naked down the stairs. Emily just carried on looking at me fixedly. Her gaze was a mixture of shock and growing defiance. I knew instinctively what was going through her mind.

" _ **You**_ _did this first_ "

She didn't say it, but it hung in the air between us like Christmas lights.

Well, she was right. I did. But not in this bed, and not like this. This wasn't cheating, this was contempt, humiliation and disdain, all wrapped up neatly in one toxic package. This was " _I don't give a flying fuck how you feel about me cheating on you"_

Finally, I broke the silence.

"You leave my house now Emily...this _minute_. I'll pack your things later...you can come back for them tomorrow. I'll get someone to be here when you do.. Leave your key when you go today. This ends _now_...this fucking... farce"

I could see the emotions crossing her face. Resentment, anger, guilt...and finally a small dose of fear. I don't know what she was expecting, but I didn't think this was it.

I turned to go downstairs, hearing the front door bang as I did...obviously Mandy had believed the knife threat.

"Naomi?" she said , in a low voice, but I couldn't even look at her.

"I said I'd do _anything_ Emily" I said with my back to her "But I guess you were right all along. I ruined it. There's nothing left but you humiliating me...and thats just fucking cruel, don't you think?"

I didn't wait for an answer.

The bedroom door banged behind me.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hetero sex warning. Naomi is hurting and as usual, she turns to an old friend for comfort. An M type chapter...very explicit. You have been warned.**

Naomi

I didn't leave the inside of the house for 4 days after Emily went...Oh, except for the morning she came for her stuff. Her and Katie, actually. I waited in the garden while Emily trooped in and out of the front door, loading up stuff into her borrowed dads car. Katie came into the garden whilst I was looking listlessly at the paddling pool and greasy barbecue. It looked so familiar...but so different. OK, I hadn't been happy, watching Emily kiss that girl and call me out on my cowardice...but at least I was ignorant then. I thought she was just making me jealous. Apparently not...she'd been seeing Mandy for over a fortnight even then. The only reason Mandy wasn't at the barbecue was because she was going to her own Uni open day. Ignorance was my only armour then. And now it was gone.

"If you've come to slag me off Katie" I said wearily "Save your breath. No one hates me as much as I hate me"

"I don't hate you Campbell" came from over my shoulder, and I turned in surprise "You fucked up massively..and I hated what you _did_. But Emily has turned it into a life's work, punishing you...and that's not right, or healthy for either of you"

I stared at her in total shock. Katie Fitch, momentarily supportive? Worlds were colliding somewhere out in the Milky Way, just at the idea.

"I still hate myself" I said brokenly, and rubbed fresh tears from my stinging eyes. I'd cried so much these past few days, I actually had permanent red marks under them.

"Yeah" she said sadly "I get that...but I'm not here to crow about it. You two have hurt each other so bad, I don't know if either of you will ever get over it. Jesus...talk about Juliet and Juliet"

I smiled grimly. That was about right. Two star crossed lovers, doomed to fail.

"Thanks anyway" I said quietly "I appreciate you not tearing my head off yet again...although maybe it would be the best thing, if someone actually did bump me off. I don't think people were meant to feel this awful and still be breathing"

"Don't even _think_ about it, Campbell" she said seriously. "This may be the end of you and her...but for fucks sake...you're young...you're going to Uni soon? I know its a fucked up line..but things _will_ get better. Give it time"

"Will they?" I said bitterly "I fucking hope so Katie...coz if they don't, I may just join Effy in that Bath funny farm"

Her brow creased, and for the first time I saw anger in her eyes.

" _DON'T_ equate what you're going through with what Effy is" she grated "Effy is suffering more than you'll ever know. Freddies still missing, so is Cook. Her mothers still living inside a vodka bottle and her dad's AWOL. _You_ just broke up with your girlfriend. Deal with it"

The irony of that line didn't escape me. I'd said the same thing to Cook when he'd come to my house one morning after I'd been found out about Sophia. He'd just laughed and marched down the hill towards Park Street, still Jack the Lad.

"OK" I whispered "Sorry Katie"

"Enough" she said briskly "I'd love to stay and chat, but I have another sisterly duty to perform. You're not the only one with a broken heart Campbell"

I blinked at that. Broken heart? Emily?..why the fuck would she feel bad about what had happened. Apart from having to sleep in a caravan with her crazy mother and pervert brother, she'd done pretty well out of it all. I'd given her the Goa tickets I had hidden away, and she could go with poxy Mandy or whoever..."fuck on every beach in India" or whatever my mother used to say. What's broken hearted about that?

But Katie had already spun on her expensive heels and marched back into the house. Seconds later I heard the door slam as they left. When I got inside, shivering despite the warm day, Emily's keys were on the side. They glinted at me malevolently, and I swept them into the hall table drawer, unable to look at them any more.

"Its over" I thought...and crumpled to the floor, holding myself with folded arms and sobbing yet again for my lost love.

XXX

Three days after that, I got a visitor. Being Cook of course, he didn't use the front door. I was asleep in my mothers room. I still hadn't plucked up the courage to sleep in my own bed, despite burning the bedding in the dustbin in the garden and sweeping the whole area for 'Emily' things. Photo's, chalk boards, mementoes, clothes and cheap costume jewellery. Anything that reminded me of the redhead, I either binned or burnt. You'd think she had never been in my house, let alone my life. Except I saw her round every corner, in every room. Like a fucking living ghost.

I heard the spare bedroom window creak, and for a millisecond, thought ' _Emily_?'

Then I heard the muffled curse as someone banged their head hard on the window frame. Cook. Right.

I sighed and got up. Pulling on my (new) dressing gown, I padded barefoot into the smallest bedroom to find him rubbing his head ruefully and grinning at me, totally unabashed.

"Cook" I said angrily "It's 3 am...you're pissed, and the cops are still looking for you. Tell me why I shouldn't phone them now?"

"Because you love me Naomikins" he grinned "and despite your totally unaccountable refusal to let me bone you..I know you won't"

I couldn't help the grin that sneaked out as I looked at him. Fuck, it was the first time I had even smiled for weeks. He was right. Despite his endless attempts to get into my knickers, I did like him. He was uncomplicated, crazy and always fun. If the cops didn't catch up to him, I could have a worse house-mate.

"OK, loser" I said, still smiling "I suppose you need a bed for the night...where the fuck have you been anyway?"

His face got serious for a second.

"Doing something I needed to" he said grimly "and I have some news for you. Got any spliff?"

I had, actually. Thank God for home delivery drug dealers. Better than Amazon.

An hour later, we were sitting at the kitchen table with a half empty bottle of brandy in front of us and an ashtray full of roaches. He'd gone through my stash like a demon, telling me his story. But after I heard it, I didn't begrudge him a single draw.

"So basically...poor Freddies dead...Fosters done a runner, after you battered him, and you're still on the run. Does anyone else know all this...like Effy maybe?"

He winced when I mentioned her name.

"Naah...princess" he said wearily "I thought I'd save that particular bit of gossip for when she's better. How is she anyway, Blondie?"

"Same?" I said...how the fuck did I know? I hadn't been out of the house for days.

"What about Emilio?" he said quizzically, nodding in the direction of our bedroom upstairs.

"Thats over Cook" I said, in a tone which I hoped would persuade him to leave it. Fat chance.

"WHAT?" he shouted, banging the chair legs down on the floor from his leaning position. "You and little red finished...don't fucking believe it babe. You two are like...special"

"Not so special she couldn't force herself to fuck another girl in my bed..and not just once Cook..." I said bitterly.

His face took on a genuine sad look. Something I could never remember happening before.

"Jesus..that is fucked up" he said, staring at the brandy bottle until I tipped another treble in his glass "You and her?...well..there really is no hope for any of us, is there?"

"Apparently not" I said dully, and poured myself another generous slug of cheap brandy.

He looked up at me after swallowing his shot in one.

"So you and me...on for that non lezzer willy waggle for defo now babe, huh?"

I tried to keep a straight face, but his eyebrow dance, as he chanced his arm for about the millionth time since I'd known him stopped me frowning. I grinned back.

"Not in this lifetime Cook" I said..."Not in this life"

If I had had a crystal ball, I would have smacked it over my head just then. Coz, despite everything...despite the fact that I was now officially 'gay' and despite the fact that I was still mourning the loss of the love of my life...that's exactly what happened.

XXX

A week later, Cook was still here. I'd got him a few clothes from his old squat, and as he only went out at night, we managed to avoid the cops picking him up. We spent the days asleep, and the nights drinking and smoking weed. Not exactly a change for me, or him...but he was good company, when he wasn't trying to get his leg over me, and I started to feel better by the day, despite the alcohol intake.

But his idea to go out the next Saturday night started the rot. We went to a small club on the edge of town...somewhere we never went before, and somewhere I knew none of my friends would go...and somewhere I definitely knew _Emily_ wouldn't go. We topped up on beer and whisky before we went out, and from nowhere, Cook produced some 'E's that blew my fucking head off. Uncle Keith, no doubt.

When we got to the club, I lost him for a few minutes, but I didn't mind. For once, I was wasted and not alone. The MDMA was roaring through my system. The teeth grinding, the rush at the back of my neck and the feeling (resisted luckily) to fuck anyone who even looked at me, were overpowering. I reached the dance floor just as Cook trailed an arm over my shoulder with a Corona in it. I drank it greedily, the liquid running down my chin. He looked at me strangely, and I suppose I should have taken that as a warning sign, but I was frankly too fucked to care.

For an hour we danced and whooped together. I don't even like Ibiza or the endless Ministry of Sound stuff, but another tab from Cook, followed by two more beers, and I was flying. Even when he ground against me from behind, letting me feel his hard on, and groped my tits, I found it funny rather than unpleasant. He must have thought all his birthdays had come at once.

By the time we stumbled through my door, seeing the taxi drive away, I knew what was going to happen.

I stroked his face as he held me up in the dark hallway.

"I love you Cook" I slurred, and he chuckled dirtily

"How much babe?" he said, suddenly appearing more sober than me.

I looked up at his eyes "Enough to fuck you" I said clearly, even though my inner voice was screaming at me about gayness, and Emily's. "Enough to fuck you tonight"

He picked me up and took me into the lounge, before dropping me onto the couch. I looked away as he stripped off his top, but then looked back. Why was I being so coy. I'd fucked guys before. I'd seen a naked mans torso...a naked mans cock.

He dropped to the carpet beside the couch and kissed me. Hard. It was so different from the way I had been kissed before...I could taste tobacco, vodka, and something else...something male and strange. He was experienced and fast. In seconds whilst I was kissing him back, he stripped me naked. I watched with stoned eyes as he spread my legs and went down on me. Jesus, his tongue was bigger...longer than anything I had experienced before. I heard myself groaning as he probed and lapped at me. He wasn't better than Emily...just, I don't know... _harder_ at everything. I gripped his short hair as he went deeper and moaned aloud as one of his fingers joined his tongue. I knew then that I wasn't going to stop him. Cook was going to fuck me...and I was definitely going to enjoy it.

When I was writhing and begging, he stopped. I blinked at him in surprise...second thoughts?

But no, he left me gasping on that plateau...wanting more, needing more. He stood and stripped off his 501's and boxers. Now I've not seen many cocks, not this close anyway. But I think you can safely say Cook was impressive. It was too dark to appreciate his 'artwork' but I recognised a healthy male when I saw it. I thought he was just going spread my legs and dive right in...but someone had been waiting a long time to get into the Campbell knickers...he was going to make it last.

He saw my disappointment and smiled down at me.

"Don't worry Blondie" he said quietly "I'm going to fuck you until you scream the walls down...but first...you need to do something for me"

I wrinkled my brow in incomprehension...do something? What the fuck did he think I was lying here for, naked and open legged? Then it dawned on me...of course. He wanted me to suck him off.

"I...I've never" I said nervously. I was telling the truth...if it wasn't for internet porn, I would never even have seen anyone else do it either. Give me a wet fanny and a willing girl, and I could do that all night...but this?

"Its easy babe" he said, holding himself closer to my lips "But if you're gonna go the straight way...you need to learn how to do this...and you DO want to try this, don't you?"

I nodded uncertainly. It had never been something on my to do list...but the MDMA was still kicking the shit out of my inhibitions, and I felt I owed him something for breaking me out of my self destruct cycle.

"Good girl" he said, as I nodded to him.

He slid in in between my lips and I began to work on him.

After a few minutes, apart from jaw ache...I was surprised how easy it was to lose yourself in doing this. He was watching my mouth on him intently. I sucked and I stroked...I licked and I teased with my teeth. I must have been reasonably good at it...or it could just have been that seeing me sucking him off was even more of a turn on because I had denied him so long, but anyway, he pulled his cock out of my mouth with an audible plop.

"Better stop now Naomi" he hissed "Even Cookie boy can't hold off forever"

I realised then that he was about to come in my mouth. I was grateful...one hurdle at a time, I told myself...that was definitely a bridge too far.

He spared me any more introspection. I've had a dildo inside me...quite a big dildo. Emily and I had bought one for a laugh in a sex shop in Exeter...but it was nothing compared to the way Cook used his dick inside me. He was bigger, thicker and definitely more flexible. I gripped his muscled bum in my hands and hooked my heels over his hips. _Now_ he fucked me...

I thought all sex with guys was pretty similar...a few finger strokes, a semi painful penetration, then less than 5 minutes of thrusting. Not with Cook. He played me like an expensive instrument. Long strokes, short strokes...teasing withdrawals, tight circles...in minutes I was looking blankly over his shoulder, praying he wouldn't finish too quickly.

Minutes later, he propped himself further up on his arms, so that just his cock was touching me. He looked down at my face and smiled again.

"Touch your self Naomi" he said slowly "Fuck yourself for me"

Now, I've done that for Emily dozens of times. She loved to see me masturbate. But doing it with a guy inside me...never occurred to me.

But I did...and the extra stimulation did for me in seconds. I came as hard as I have ever done in my life...thrashing, bucking and calling his name.

We did it again half an hour later. He pressed another E into my mouth and stroked my nipples until the rush came...then he went down on me again until I came. When I'd stopped shaking, he sat me up and slid his hard on back into my mouth. I sucked and licked him like a madwoman. Kaleidoscope images flickered behind my closed eyelids. Sexual images...girls with girls, girls with guys, girls with two guys. This time, when he tapped me on my shoulder and hissed a warning, I ignored him. I pressed his erection as far inside my mouth as I could get it, and when he started to spasm, swallowed quickly. When he slid it from my mouth this time, his grin was as wide as the Bristol Channel.

"Welcome aboard babes" he beamed "Naomikins joins the Cookie Monster Club"

I barely made it upstairs before passing out on my bed. When I woke in the morning, he was gone. But the ache between my legs told me it wasn't a dream. I'd fucked Cook...multiple times. Jesus, Naomi...what have you _done_?


	3. Chapter 3

Emily

"Heard from her?" Katie said drily, rifling through the drawer for underwear. She pulled out one of my pairs of boxer shorts and looked at them as though they were radioactive. You could probably make 12 of her thongs out of the material.

"Who?" I said, knowing exactly who she meant.

No I hadn't ,and to be honest, it was bothering me a whole lot more than I thought it would. Wasn't this what I _wanted_...for her to leave me alone? Wasn't that the point of rubbing her nose in my so called affair with Mandy? I didn't intend to get caught post shag, as it were, in our bed...I had had more than one twinge of guilt at that...but I hadn't exactly been subtle about it. 'Going out with friends' was a euphemism even humble Naomi should have twigged. But she didn't, and the more pathetic, apologetic and sorry she got, the more I mistreated her. Going back to the house after I found out about her one off shag with the dead girl Sophia was hard, but I have to admit, there was more than a bit of self interest involved as well. Living here, on a bunk opposite my overbearing sister, wasn't high on my to do list. Going back to Naomi was supposed to be temporary...just until I found somewhere else. I wasn't even close to forgiving her, and I'm not sure it would ever have happened at all, looking back.

I'd spent two years pursuing her, through 6th form college, and when she finally got her head out of her arse and admitted she loved me, it turned into a bit of a vacuum. I'd got what I wanted, she loved me unconditionally. We laughed and loved together, making out in every room of her house and in numerous alleys and toilets. Finally I had her totally, mind and body. And then it was all gap year travel plans and yet more frantic sex. We never really talked about anything more substantial than what booze was in the cupboard, and whether there was another party to go to tonight. With her mum away, we had started to behave like it was all easy and inevitable...too easy, as it turned out.

I knew she wanted to go to Uni in London, but I put it to the back of my mind...or at least, if I did think about it, it was along the lines of 'Naomi goes to Uni where _I_ go', end of. I never even asked her about her choices, so although finding out about her shagging a random was shattering...finding out it was after an open day I never even _knew_ about hurt just as much. It meant she was making plans without me, and in my egotistical, loved up, selfish state, that was unacceptable too. Who said anything about Goldsmiths? I was pretty set on staying in Bristol, going to Uni here, which meant we could stay in her mums house until we got a place of our own. End of discussion.

Apparently not. She had been making her own plans, and I felt doubly betrayed.

Moving out had been harder than I thought too. I expected my clothes to be packed neatly in bags. That was Naomi's way. I was the uncoordinated, careless one. If you looked at our bedroom, when we were together, you would know instantly whose side was whose. Mine was covered in discarded clothes, cheap jewellery and makeup boxes. Hers was neat and orderly. I know it must have driven her mad...finding the toothpaste half squeezed and open, the soap on the floor of the shower and towels everywhere, but that was me, and she hardly gave any sign of being upset about it. Love I suppose...

No, the hardest thing about moving out was seeing what the place looked like now. Stripped, cleaned and purged of anything relating to 'us'. No photo's, no joint souvenirs, no chalk board with lobster and cheese references...nothing. While Katie was in the garden, talking to 'her' about fuck knows what, I searched the house for anything I might have left behind. Not a chance. Everything I owned was in 4 black bin liners neatly stacked at the bottom of the stairs. I went upstairs and checked our old room. It looked like a hotel room. Neat, neutral and impersonal. Even the green sheets and duvet I had bought at the market recently had gone. In its place, a stripped bed, mattress and pillows bare. The walls, until recently covered with photo's of us with our friends and stuff, was empty. The window was open wide, and a mild breeze ruffled the curtains. It seemed even the very smell of me was being expunged from this house. I took a quick look in her mothers old room. Sure enough, the bed although made, was obviously being used by her. Her reading glasses, which I used to tease her about, were on the bedside cabinet, and a pile of University Guides were next to them. She couldn't even bear to be in the room we'd shared. That hurt.

I cried then. It surprised me. All the time I had been back in that house, I had kept my tears to a minimum. I _had_ cried of course...lonely bitter tears of betrayal and loss, but mostly at the beginning, before I decided to torture her. Because thats what I had done. Weeks of silence...letting her sleep on the put you up against the wall, because she was too scared to ask if she could sleep with me. Too scared, but not quite scared enough to move into the other bedroom. It was as if she needed to be close, but not too close. After the silence, which was as wearing for me as it was for her, I spoke when I had to. "Pass the ketchup". "Is there any hot water for a bath?", "I'm going out"...that sort of thing.

She kept trying, I'll give her that. Making me coffee in the mornings, cooking my dinner, washing my clothes. But I never bent. Never gave her any hope, because I didn't think it was in me to forgive her. She spoke to me a lot, asking me how my day had been. (like there _was_ anything to do...we had spent so much time besotted with each other's company, I had trouble remembering what I had done before her, to pass the days)

College, or what was left of it, was the only refuge. She got the bus, I drove my little scooter in. After a while, people stopped asking why. Effy was in hospital, Freddie was missing and Cook was fuck knows where. Panda and Thomas were split up and miserable. The whole thing, 6th form, friendship, love...it was all fucked.

And then I found Mandy...or she found me, more accurately.

At first, when the sting of betrayal was worst, I thought about cheating on Naomi. But I held back. Partly because the thought of touching another woman did nothing for me. It was if I had anaesthetised my libido. I didn't masturbate and I didn't have sexy thoughts about any pretty girl I saw. I was dead from the waist down. Then I went to that party...the other side of town. Somewhere I knew I wouldn't see anyone I knew, apart from the guy who invited me. He'd only just moved to this side of the city, so I was comfortable that he couldn't tell anyone.

Half a bottle of tequila and half a gram of whizz later, and I was _flying_. For a couple of hours, I forgot Naomi, Sophia and everything else which was weighing me down. I was wrecked, high on dancing and amphetamine and everyone looked like my friend. I was getting attention from a couple of guys, but even stoned, I was never gonna tread _that_ path. Tried cock, didn't like it. Period. Shagging JJ that time just confirmed it. I know he was hardly a cocksman like Cook (but yuk...I mean _Cook_?) but he was gentle and considerate, and surprisingly skilful for a virgin. I suppose internet porn has some advantages for the maturing mind. Unless you're James, of course.

I didn't come obviously. He was so excited, he filled his condom inside 10 minutes. I'd done my bit. When he rolled off me and wanted to exercise his post coital fondling rights, I told him firmly that he'd had his fun for the night. Once tried, never repeated, was my mantra going forward. No, the hopeful guys who were dancing next to me, eyeing my tits and probably taking bets who would get their dicks into me by midnight were bang out of luck.

And then Mandy walked in. I probably wouldn't have gone for her any other time. She wasn't particularly good looking...not in a Naomi way...fuck, did I just say that? But the comment I overheard as she passed me, by one of the likely lads, made me change my mind.

"Oh no..here's that fucking dyke Mandy...watch out girls" he slurred unpleasantly, looking over at me and winking as if I was part of his fucking lamo homophobe club.

I took another look at her as she scanned the room, presumably looking for someone she knew. She was way taller than me, dark skinned and black haired. As she swung sideways towards me, I saw her tits were unfettered by a bra and they bounced deliciously. After a 5 second perv, I looked up at her face again, and saw that she was looking directly at me, with a smirk on her face. Busted.

The guy next to me groaned when he saw the looks we were exchanging and leaned over to whisper to his friend, who was necking his 12th bottle of the night. They both turned to stare at me in distaste, and the whizz and booze inside me prompted me to be braver than I normally was. I smiled at them brightly and walked over to Mandy, as she stood in the middle of the swirling bodies in the lounge.

"Dance?" I said and curled my arms round her neck before she could answer. She must have thought Christmas had come early because the initial surprise on her face was replaced with instant lust.

"Oh fuck yeah" she said in a dark brown voice " Dance...and then?"

I reached up on tiptoes and whispered in her ear.

"And then we can find somewhere quiet so you can _fuck_ me?" I said hotly.

She shivered and her arms gripped me tightly, pressing those full tits to my chest.

"Dancing's _so_ overrated" she laughed...and started to propel me out of the room.

I'd never even slept with another girl. Naomi had been my one, my only and I had a brief moment of doubt as the bedroom door closed behind us, Mandy propping a chair under the door handle. What if I was shit at it...what if only Naomi got turned on by my caresses?

I needn't have worried as it turned out. Mandy kissed me, laid me on the bed, and for the next few minutes, all I had to do was thrash about and moan. She certainly knew what she was doing. She licked me, she sucked me and she fucked me. Fingers and tongue working in perfect harmony. The amphetamine made it last longer than I would have under normal circumstances which was nice, but to be honest, she had enough skills to get me off whatever the chemical enhancements to my raging libido. I came brutally hard, her tongue and fingers inside me, thrusting and curling. She hadn't even taken that patterned silk dress off by that stage. But after a few minutes breathless recovery, I was returning the favour with interest. She tasted different...not as nice, if I was honest...more earthy than Naomi...but she was sexy, she was willing, and watching her come as I licked and fucked her, was very satisfying.

We left the party together, and for the next 5 weeks, we we went out as a couple a few times a week. I told her about the breakup with Naomi, but not the fact that I was still living with my ex. We drank in pubs we never, ever used as 6th formers, and the only time it failed was when I bumped into fucking JJ with some blonde girl in a riverside pub. I was mortified, and wanted to leave immediately, especially as JJ twigged straight away what was going on. But bloody Mandy wanted to be introduced...as " _You never let me meet any of your friends,_ _Em?_ " so I did. The look on JJ's face as we left told me everything I needed to know about what he understood about my relationship with Mandy.

And then we got properly caught.

Naomi was still trying so hard to make it up with me. Even when I kissed Sarah, the girl at the barbecue... I didn't even fancy her, but I knew it would crucify Naomi. Well. I was right there. She called me out on it, and I basically launched myself at her, getting us both soaked and making some crass remark about getting her nice and wet. She jumped out and walked away, and I followed her. "Fuck you" was followed by "fuck you right back" and we broke apart. Something had to be said. People were watching us, and our friends just looked sad.

"I fucked the dead girl" Naomi said "I fucked Sophia and sold her drugs...and now she's punishing me"

Well it was true. But no one else had known that up to now.

She looked at me with such sadness and guilt that I almost gave in.

"Em...?" she said brokenly

It was that use of my familiar nickname that made me lose it. My face crumpled and I just bawled. Too fucking painful for words. I knew then I hadn't forgiven her. At any other time in our relationship, that would have been enough to break me. But I just turned away, too torn to answer. I heard her sob pathetically behind me.

Then of course, my fucking parents decided to intervene. I gave my mother the benefit of my new found sarcasm, and got a full on belt across the face from my sister as reward. The barbecue broke up, and I washed and changed before going to the spare room to cry. After Katie had comforted me and we'd had pizza at our old house...luckily the stupid repo guys hadn't changed the locks yet... I decided to go back to Naomi's house. She'd made me chilli, which she knew was my favourite comfort food. But I blew her off, yet again, telling her I was going out with my friends. She sat and took it, yet again...and I found myself strangely unmoved when I saw silent tears dripping onto her shirt as she sat there, defeated, broken at my refusal to compromise.

When I went back for my phone, I had no intention of seeing Mandy that night. But when Naomi said she was going over to the hospital to see Effy, staying overnight at Anthea's small flat I changed my mind.

If I was honest with myself...which I wasn't much then...I would have admitted that the whole Mandy thing had got old very quickly. She was a good, enthusiastic shag, and she was very into me. But there was something fundamental missing in our relationship. I didn't _love_ her. But the chance of a whole nights shagging, unimpeded by miserable ex's hanging about, was too good to miss out on. I phoned her and an hour later she came over.

Well, the rest is history as they say. I got my nights shagging. She stayed over and as Naomi had said she wouldn't be back till the next afternoon, I let Mandy stay a lot later than was wise. The morning shag might have had something to do with it. We ended up top and tailing on the bed, face down and naked, browsing on our laptops. I suppose that was the final straw. Naomi catching us casually using her bed as a study aid, after screwing each other all night. Far worse than what she had done to me, if I was honest. She had betrayed me...once... with someone she hardly knew...I was _serially_ betraying her...in her own bed. I don't know how you total these sort of things, but I think my score was way higher than hers.

I was strangely calm for the first few seconds after we were discovered. Part of me was glad that it was out in the open, but part of me was gripped in cold dread at the finality of what I had done. No casual brush off was going to resolve this.

When Naomi spoke, it was with cold, calculated venom. Mandy is no shrinking violet, but when Naomi threatened her with a knife, she bolted. When my ex turned to me, I knew what was coming, but I still shivered at the ice in her words.

She made herself very clear. When she'd left the bedroom, I got up, dressed quickly and grabbed my laptop and a duffel bag. I stuffed it with a few things and ran downstairs. She was in the kitchen, and I stood in the doorway for a second, hoping she would say something else. But what was there to say? She was right, I had humiliated her, and even a broken, repentant Naomi couldn't be pushed for ever. It was over, and as I swung my leg over the scooter and started the little engine, I knew with sickening certainty that this was it.

It _was_ over.

So now, when Katie tried to engage me in conversation, I wasn't exactly in the mood. The 'beds' were lumpy and narrow. My father's night-time snores made the metal walls of the caravan vibrate, and being in this close a proximity to my mothers triumphant, post Naomi face, and James constant enquiries about whether he could now screw Naomi,as 'you've finished with that fit body now Emily' was excruciating.

Anyway, back to the present.

"The Empress Cleopatra" Katie answered sarcastically "Who the fuck do you think Ems?"

"Why would I have seen **her**?" I said, trying to concentrate on finding enough clothes to escape Katie's Inquisition and James attempts to cop a look at my tits every time I got changed.

"I have..." she said, and I stopped my search for a clean bra.

I couldn't stop myself, I had to ask. Force of habit, I suppose.

"Where?" I said, not trusting myself to say any more

"Mike took me to a new club...you know that _Dorma's_ on the other side of town"

"Never been there" I said "Too far out...the fucking taxi fare is ruinous. Anyway, why would she be there...she fucking hates noisy, glittery clubs"

I'd said too much, and I knew it, but my mouth seemed to be following its own rules.

"Seemed to be having a good time...her and Cook" Katie said slyly, and I had to grip the cupboard to stop myself shaking. Cook? What the fuck...he had been trying to get into Naomi's knickers for nearly two years...but she had always blown him off, even when she was pretending to be straight.

"Cook's on the run...fuck knows where" I said sharply "And why would she be with him...she's gay"

Katie smiled evilly and twisted the knife with an assassins skill.

"Didn't look like it babe. I think she's gone back to the cock...judging by the way she was grinding up against him and letting him paw her tits"

"Fuck off Katie" I said hotly "It won't work...you can't make me jealous... we're over, remember?"

"Yeah..right" she smirked, raising an eyebrow "And your insides _aren't_ churning right now...knowing he would have fucked her unconscious when they got home? I've seen Cook in that mood, and he doesn't given up. She looked totally wasted and E'd up...and we know what MDMA does to our inhibitions, don't we Emsy..." _I_ _was drunk, someone gave me MDMA and I just felt like kissing someone, right?_ " She mimicked my confession of almost 2 years ago outside that cellar club.

I felt sick...like actually physically sick. She _couldn't_...not with fucking _Cook_ of all people? He wasn't even supposed to be in Bristol, where the cops are still looking for him. Why him...why a _MAN_ of all things...?"

Katie could see how busted I was, so for once she didn't press her advantage. Her voice softened.

"Listen Ems...she's hurting right now. You fucking destroyed her. OK, I know she started it all off by shagging that Sophia . But three months of your silence, knock backs and evil looks wore her down into a fucking shadow of the old Campbell. And then you totally humiliated her with that Mandy skank, in her own bed?... I think you got your own back, don't you?"

"B..but Cook...a fucking _guy_?" I said weakly "She's gay"

"She's gay for _you_ Emily" Katie said sadly "She fought it so long, but I think she was always bi at best. You made her fall in love with you, and once she'd accepted that, she _was_ gay. But she's never been as sure as you about it all. I saw her that night. It wasn't Naomi out there, with Cooks hands all over her. She was probably so out of it, anyone would have done. She's medicating herself to block it all out. And we know that Cooks always wanted to fuck her"

I winced as the mental images of Cook on top of Naomi...naked, writhing, crowded my overheated brain.

"The thing you need to decide, Emily is if you're prepared to let her go. Not just leave her...but properly let her go. If you're sure its all over, fine. You go to Uni, find yourself a hot chick to muff dive with and forget her. But the flip side of that is that she's going to find someone else too"

I looked up at her with big tears in my eyes.

"N...Not _Cook_?" I said huskily

"No Ems...not Cook" she grimaced. "Cook only wants a fuck nowadays. After Effy, I don't think he's looking for anything else. In any case, sooner or later, the cops are gonna catch up with him...and then he'll be away for ages. Naomi will go off to Uni and she'll go back to being a muff monkey again...just not with _you_ , hun"

It was brutal...but that was Katie...it was also honest.

"I don't know what to do" I said quietly "I don't know if I can forgive her...even now"

Katie stood up and bristled at me.

"Well you'd better make your fucking mind up quickly. I take it you're not taking the Amazon Queen to Goa now?"

I shook my head. Although Naomi had given me the tickets, I couldn't even look at them, let alone consider taking anyone else with me. They were open ended, but I would have to decide soon.

"OK then, lets go out and get wasted...just on booze" Katie smiled "Just us two...like we used to. No boys, no fucking carpet munchers and definitely no drugs. I know just the place. Come on Ems...what do you say? We'll get drunk, and you can decide tomorrow...tonight we forget _all_ the fuckers... _go_ girls!"

Her smile was infectious. I smiled back through my tears, and resumed my search for a bra that James hadn't fondled or worse...

Tomorrow would have to do...forgiveness or forgetfulness.


	4. Chapter 4

Naomi

Its been a week since Cook spent the night here 'with' me, and if I thought I felt bad before Emily left, I now know it can get even worse. Fucking him is something I promised myself I would never do, even when I was as unsure about my sexuality as I was about my A level selections. I'd resisted him all the way through college, even stopping him that time in the empty classroom when it seemed like my attraction to Emily was overwhelming my whole world and shagging him held all the answers.

So, after going all that time being sensible Naomi, two little white tablets, half a bottle of cheap vodka, and suddenly I'm letting him do anything he likes with my naked body. And its no point me pretending I didn't like it...I fucking _did_. Enough to come three fucking times. He now had enough erotic images of me in his sleazy memory bank to last a lifetime.

After an embarrassing and stressful trip to the sexual health clinic in town next morning, I at least had the satisfaction of knowing that the morning after pill should take care of any potential little Cooks making an appearance in 9 months. I spent an hour in the bath after, obsessively scrubbing myself clean inside and out, but the dirty feeling in my mind persisted. The little voice in my head kept needling me " _You fucked_ _Cook...you fucked_ _ **Cook**_ " over and over again. It was almost as persistent as the other thought "You cheated on Emily... _again_ " Although at least I could partially dismiss that one. You can't cheat on someone who has already fallen out of love with you, can you?

So when Cook showed up again, 4 days later, I was in a bit of a state. I actually tried to slam the door in his face, but he jammed his foot in the step.

"Come on Blondie" he pleaded, with those little boy lost eyes "I'm not gonna jump your bones, babe..? Cookie just wants a word"

I let him in, of course. What was the point in avoiding what had happened. He'd shagged me finally, and now I suppose I'd have to suffer the inevitable Cook crudity about my mint tits, or the way I moaned when I was coming. I set my face into a grim expression, wrapped my cardie around my body and followed him into the kitchen.

"Coffee?" I grunted. No one said I had to make it easy, did they?

"Naah babe...got any vodka?" He said brightly.

"For fucks _sake_ Cook" I growled, face twisting in disbelief "Its 10 in the morning...normal people don't start on alcohol till AFTER breakfast, usually?"

"Yeah...but we're not normal people, are we Naomikins...live fast, die young, babe, huh?"

"You choose your own exit strategy Cook" I said flatly "I quite like having a functional liver. So...coffee, or fuck all, your choice"

"Coffee it is babe" he conceded. I bit off my automatic "I'm not a babe" It was fucking pointless. Just as pointless as trying to put off the inevitable post mortem on our shagathon...so after I'd boiled the kettle and filled the mugs with instant, I sat down heavily opposite him and started to speak.

"Look, Cook, about the other..."

He stopped me with a raised hand and smile.

"Stop right there Naomi" he said quietly "I know what you're gonna say. It was a mistake...it can't happen again...you're gay...right?"

I looked at him for a long moment before answering him.

"All of the above" I said, looking down at my hands " Look, I love someone Cook...I mean _really_ love someone. Just because she's cheated on me and fucked off, doesn't mean I've stopped loving her. The other night...Well, I won't insult you by saying I didn't enjoy it...I'm not that much of a fucking hypocrite... but it was a total one off. You got what you wanted, I got what I _needed_...but I don't need another lover James...I need a friend. Now you can decide to be that friend...and I'd really like that. Or you could be your normal arsehole self, take out an ad in the Bristol Evening Post, telling everyone...including Emily... that you finally nailed Naomi Campbell...and you'd shred the final bit of dignity I have left...whats it to be?",

He looked at me coolly, before answering.

"I've _always_ been your friend Naomikins" he said sadly "wanting to bone you doesn't change that. Getting to bone you doesn't change that. I get what you're saying, but don't sell me short. I know I like to splash about a bit...but I can see you're hurting bad over little Red. If you need me to be a friend, that's cool. Thing is...what are _you_ gonna do about this shit. I never thought you two would split. Fucking hell...when the world dies eventually in a ball of flames, I expected you two to walk into eternity still hand in hand. When did it get so fucked up"

"Dunno" I said, resting my head in my hands and staring at the table top " Probably when I decided fucking Sophia Moore was a good idea?"

"That was well stupid, kid" he said "But Emilio...she forgave you for that, yeah?"

"No she didn't Cook" I whispered miserably "she never did. First she ignored me...like for fucking _weeks_. Never looking at me...only answering questions with one word answers or nods. She would walk all round a room to avoid brushing against me...Then she used every chance to belittle me...if anyone called me a tit, or an idiot, she would jump to agree with them. I apologised over and over...but she didn't budge an inch. And then...and then... there was Mandy"

"Thats the neanderthal bint?" Cook asked bemusedly

"Yeah.." I said slowly " Built like a fucking Russian shot putter and with table manners to match"

His snigger was matched by mine. That was the second time he had made me laugh in this house.

"So...this Mandy tart?" he asked "Her and Emilio...its serious?"

"Serious enough for them to be doing some naked studying...on my _bed_...after fucking all night" I said bleakly "They thought I was away for the weekend...but I came back early"

Cook reached over and put his big hands over mine. I flinched at first, but it wasn't that sort of touch. I let them stay.

"What am I gonna do Cook" I choked, voice breaking "I miss her so fucking much... Its like my heart has been ripped out and stamped on"

He held my hands as my tears dripped down my cardigan for the millionth time. I must have looked a desperate sight. Red puffy eyes and tear streaked cheeks, but he smiled at me with genuine affection. He might be a bastard, but he was my bastard, and the closest thing I had to a best friend now that Emily had left.

"Only two choices blondie" he said gruffly "Fight or flight..its all we ever have. You either fight for her..or you fuck off...miles from here. It won't be easy either way, but you need to decide. Tell you what...lets go out for a quiet drink tonight. Just you and me...no drugs, just a few pints in a quiet pub, and decide what you're gonna do"

My face must have betrayed my apprehension at the prospect of another night out alone with Cook, because he lifted his hands off mine, palms facing me.

"Naah babe" he chuckled "Not like the other night...Cookie gets the message loud and clear. No more horizontal jogging. Thats not what you need now...you just need someone to listen"

I stared at him, unconvinced, for a moment before nodding. It made sense. Neutral territory all round.

"Mind you..." he grinned evilly "If you decide you need another dose of little Cook...you only have to ask...fucking brilliant shag that was..."

The cold quarter cup of coffee I slung over his grinning face didn't even make him flinch.

"Cunt" I said succinctly

"No.." he smirked " _Dick_...remember?"

XXX

So that night, I had a long hot shower. Dressed in a black tee and leggings and put my blue blazer with white edging on top. The weeks crying was hidden under some heavy duty foundation and thick black eye liner. Even my hair behaved for once, brushed out long, over my shoulders. A dab of 'Chloe', and I was ready for the off. We got a cab right out to the North of the City...almost at the M5...The pub was one of those 50/50 places, half bar, half restaurant, and it was about 3/4 full by the time we got there at 8.30. My appetite had disappeared at about the same time I caught Emily naked studying, so I didn't want anything to eat at first. But Cook wanted a house steak, so I picked my way through a limp chicken salad as he gorged on what looked like a recently deceased half cow.

We left the table at ten, and found a small four seat booth empty. Cook went to the bar and bought back two pints of snakebite and four shots of tequila. I looked at the drinks as if they were radioactive.

"Fuck me Cook" I said "I said I _didn't_ want to get wasted?"

"Come on Naoms" he smirked "This is just ballast. I've just necked a fucking 16 ouncer...this will just fill in the gaps around it"

I gave him one of my patented eye rolls and sipped gingerly at the lager/cider glass Whatever Cook said, I wasn't going to risk getting wasted tonight. OK, alcohol alone wasn't likely to get me into the sort of state I had been the night he got his end away, but it helps a lot. Once your resistance is low, the offer of one of those deadly little white pills is all too easy to accept. And then all bets are off. Me and Emily had had quite a lot of memorable nights on MDMA..but they were mutually agreed upon. She could be the dirtiest slut in the world after a couple of E's and more than once we had almost been caught out in the open after necking some. I was usually more circumspect, but the ones Cook had pressed into my mouth the other night were straight from the dealers top drawer. Fucking Effy would have been proud of them. I knew if one of them passed my lips tonight I would be cooked. So I sipped slowly as Cook downed his in one and went up for another.

We had been there for about 45 minutes, just talking casually, mostly avoiding the main subject when his phone buzzed. He took it out of his jeans pocket and glanced at the text display.

"Gotta take this babes" he muttered, looking up at me apologetically "Get another couple in, will ya?"

I sighed. I was still on my first pint, and my tequila stood undrunk. His glasses were all empty. Cooks idea of a quiet night in would shame a brewery tour. Still, I dragged myself up to the bar and waited to get served. It took a couple of minutes, which wasn't helped, probably, by my scowl at the middle aged barman who spoke to my tits as if they had an independent life. I can't help it...my sarcasm has been finely honed over many years. Emily Fitch hadn't quite kicked the shit out of me to that extent.

"Thank for the drinks mate" I said acidly "My nipples say hi too"

He blinked at me in surprise, and the woman next to him did a double take at what I'd said. I got a moment of tiny satisfaction when the muted howl from the other side of the bar told me she had located his shins with her foot.

It was very short lived amusement. I walked back to the booth. I could only see one side of it from my position, so I noticed Cook wasn't back yet.

"Cunt" I thought "Probably lining up his reserve shag, since I'm not putting out tonight...or ever again"

I wish it had been that simple.

As I got to the booth, I turned into it to put my drinks down. Just as well, I nearly fucking dropped them both.

Two sets of eyes regarded me from the other side. Both brown. But there the similarity ended. One pair wore a faintly amused, decidedly feral look. Katie Fucking Fitch...attack dog of this parish. The other pair, looking just as surprised as mine no doubt did, belonged to one Emily Jane Fitch, recently my addiction of choice. Silence reigned for a millisecond, then we both turned on Katie

"What the _fuck_?" was the chosen sentence. Both uttered at the same time. Emily went to get up, but Katie had thought of everything. The table inside the booth restricted her exit. Unless Katie got up, or Emily decided to take up limbo dancing, she was stuck there. But I wasn't, so I turned to demonstrate the patented Campbell fail safe option... running. But Cook was suddenly there, right behind me. He pushed me, none too gently into the booth, where I could only sit down or crouch over the table like a mong. I decided to sit, if only because I would look like a wounded stork if I didn't. Emily and I avoided each others eyes, even though I caught a whiff of her perfume which made my head swim. It wasn't that strong...just... Emily I guess.

Katie grinned at Cook and gave him a fucking totally unwarranted high five. The fuckers were laughing at each other as if they had won the prize for cleverest bastards in the world. I spun round and clocked Cook across the chops. He never even flinched. I suppose I should have known, ever since Shanky Jenkins got his arse kicked by Cook at that party, I'd known that it takes an elephant gun to take Cook down. Bastard.

"How _dare_ you" I raged at him. "Let me out of here right now"

He shook his head and just rubbed the lurid red hand mark on his cheek. At the same time I could hear Emily shouting at Katie, but with similar results. Katie wasn't budging either.

"Look Ems" she said finally, when Emily stopped shouting for a second "You might hate me for it, but listen to me and Cook for a moment. If you still want to leave after we've had our say, fine. You can't say we didn't try. Please?"

I saw Emily's eyes flash and an entirely inappropriate glow of heat ignited between my legs. God she looked magnificent when she was angry. For a second, I forgot why I was here, and wanted nothing more than to take her somewhere horizontal and fuck her senseless. It passed, but the warm sensation persisted. Whatever had happened between us, she still had the ability, just with a look to make me hot for her.

Cook gripped my forearm, and stopped me hitting him again.

"Katie's right Naomikins" he said slowly "Let us have our say, then you can do whatever the fuck it is you're so desperate to do, OK?"

I nodded reluctantly. It was pointless arguing with Cook in this mood, and with Katie Fitch as back up, we had no choice.

"OK" Katie said as Emily nodded too. "This is a game of question and answer. We ask the questions, you give the answers"

I groaned...only Katie could make this into a fucking drinking game. I expected her to suggest "I never, ever" next. Which from past experience, Katie always won anyway. There was very very little Katie hadn't 'ever' done... Usually best not to eat anything spicy beforehand. It could come back to haunt you when she describes her preference for swallowing and threesomes.

"Fine " I said tightly and folded my arms across my chest. Emily did the same. Talk about defensive positions established.

"Right" Katie said firmly. "Rules. We ask, you answer...otherwise we'll all sit here till closing time like fucking statues. Only other rule is... _Truth_ "

I glowered at Cook for his betrayal, Emily shot venomous looks at Katie, but short of starting a riot in a pub 3 miles from the City, we would have to grin and bear it. I nodded first, followed by Emily. The other two exchanged what I presumed was a relieved look.

Cook started.

"Naomikins...are you happy?"

I looked at him as if he had grown another head.

"Fucks sake, Cook. What sort of a question is that?" I growled

"Just answer the fucking question" Katie said wearily "Some of us have better things to do?"

I sighed and studied the back of my hands. This was gonna be painful and embarrassing.

"No..." I said quietly "But I..."

"Just the question Blondie" Cook smiled amiably, and I wanted to kill him all over again.

"No..." I muttered "Funnily enough, I'm _not_ happy. My girlfriend despises me, I feel so low, I could puke at any minute, and someone I thought was my friend has kidnapped me and currently humiliating me publicly...so no Cook, I'm _not_ fucking happy"

"Bit long...but you seem to be getting the hang of it now" Cook grinned, and fucking high fived Katie again, which earned him another two venomous looks.

"Emily?" Katie said in a saccharine voice which fooled no one.

Emily had obviously learned from my answer that it was pointless arguing, so she looked over my shoulder at the pub wall, and just said "No" very quietly.

"Emily..." Cook said brightly, "your turn to go first...don't want you muff munchers copying each others answers all night, do we?"

"Do you still love Naomi" he said evenly. I felt like all the air in the pub had been sucked out of it. The fucking sixty four thousand dollar question, I thought. Way to go Cook..the answer to that humdinger could change my life forever. Katie had the grace to look dumbfounded and Emily winced as if she had been punched.

"W...what the _fuck_ Cook?" She spluttered. "You can't just come out with questions like that!"

"Times a wasting" Cook grinned and necked half his beer in one swallow. "And I'm still fucking thirsty. Need to cut to the chase my little lezzer friend. Truth?"

Emily coloured and looked at her sister, who's face had returned to its previous blankness. She sighed and glanced at me briefly before lowering her eyes to the glass strewn table.

"Y...yes..." She muttered "I never said I stopped loving her...I just stopped _liking_ her very much"

It was my turn to let out the breath I had been holding. She still loved me...that was something, wasn't it?

"Naomi?" Katie said..."same question?"

This time I was on safer ground. I'd never stopped loving her...not even for a second.

"I've loved you from the first time I ever saw you...I think I was 12...?" I whispered.

Everyone's eyes widened at that confession. I'd not even admitted this much to myself before, let alone Emily. I'd spent so much time pushing her away, through middle school, and then for two years at 6th form college, I think she probably still believed I was dragged kicking and screaming into this relationship. I allowed myself a small internal cheer at her total surprise.

"Twelve?" She said, face twisted in shock. "But we never even spoke till we were 15...and even then you blew me off...told me not to bother you... I thought you were a right mardy cow then?"

"You were right...I was" I said, looking into her eyes properly for what seemed the first time in years "Self defence...I was so scared...you know, loving a girl...I turned myself into a sarcastic bitch to make it go away. It didn't work...but when I saw you at that assembly in Roundview...the first day...I knew then I couldn't fight it any more"

"But you did..." she muttered "every step of the way...and all that fucking time you _loved_ me?" She scrunched up her face in anger "it almost makes it worse. I cried a million tears over you...and you fucking LOVED me?" How fucked up is that...how fucked up are YOU?"

Her voice was getting louder, and people across the pub were starting to look at us curiously.

"Em...?" Katie warned, putting a restraining hand on Emily's arm "Calm down, yeah?"

Emily wrenched her hand out of Katie's grip and glared at me.

"You're such a fucking secretive cow" she hissed "Is there anything about you that I _DO_ know is true?"

There were three winces at that. Mine was the most pained, but Cook and Katie's weren't far behind.

"You can keep hating me Emily" I said wearily, "And I can keep apologizing for being a stupid, closed off, fucked up cow...but I think we've tried that routine. I can't get any lower or be any more sorry. And finding you playing happy families with a naked Mandy convinced me things weren't going to get better on their own"

She had the grace to blush slightly at that truth...not that it made me feel any better.

"So your medication of choice changed from inhaling weed to Cook's cock... **that** was your idea of solving the problem?

Emily's voice took on that bitter defensive tone I remembered all too well from my months of purgatory. I shook my head. Nothing was being solved here by swapping infidelities.

"Getting wasted beyond all reason and shagging someone I shouldn't have is something I'm ashamed of..." I said bleakly "...but if all we're gonna do is trade off mistakes, nothing good is going to come out of these two fuckers bushwhacking us tonight. I hurt you first...because I was scared you were taking over my life. A life I'd planned out since Junior School. I was stupid and cruel. You didn't deserve it, and I'm a total fucking coward for using it as an excuse"

Emily was staring at me intently, but I rushed on...this was the first time she had even let me try to explain. At least if she walked out on me this time, I would have the small satisfaction of knowing she had heard it all this time.

"But what you did to me...freezing me out...treating me with complete contempt... sleeping with that other ...person... in _our_ bed...was too much for me to bear. I've become a shadow of the person I was. I don't recognise myself. You don't have any respect for me...and I don't either. If you say now...tonight...that we're finished, then that's it. I'm going to take up my option at Goldsmiths, move to London, and try my hardest to put myself back together...without you"

I paused then...I guessed the question and answer session was over. I was spent. It was up to her now. I chanced a quick look at her eyes, but she wasn't giving anything away. Her eyes were hard, unblinking, unreadable.

Cook cleared his throat, but Emily raised her hand to stop him speaking. Here it comes, I thought...here comes the crushing blow I've been dreading.

"I said I never stopped loving you Naomi" she said "and thats true. I hated what you did...something pure and special was lost the day you cheated on me...and if I'm honest, and I suppose thats what tonight is all about, I don't know if we can ever get that back"

My face must have shown my disappointment...and if it didn't, the big tears which filled my eyes would have given her a clue. She reached into her pocket and took out a handkerchief, handing it to me wordlessly. I noted with a thud of pure misery that she avoided touching my hand when she did.

"So I'm not going to make any promises I probably won't keep" she said huskily "I want to go now Katie...Cook?"

"I'll call you Naomi...I can't say when...but I need some time to think this over"

My heart, which had been thumping so loud in my chest I was worried it would overwhelm the pub music deck, slowed down. She still hadn't given me a single crumb of comfort. But enough of the old Naomi Campbell still existed inside me, even now. I wasn't about to do any more grovelling. That shit was old news.

"Fair enough Emily" I said, fighting to keep my voice level "But just know this...I still love you...but I'm not being your punchbag any more. Leave it too long, and it might be too late for both of us"

She stared at me for a long minute, searching my face for fuck knows what, then nodded coolly and stood up. This time Katie stood too and let her pass. Katie shot me an apologetic look as they left the pub together. Neither of them glanced back as they opened the door.

I sighed heavily as the door closed behind them. Cook rested a hand on my arm and stroked it absently.

"OK Naomikins?" He said gently.

"Strangely enough Cook...despite the fact that I have an overwhelming desire to cut off your balls with a blunt knife...yes I am. I've done all I can. If she can't forgive me now...well, she never will. Time to get on with living. I'm fed up with just existing"

XXX

Funnily enough, I was actually telling the truth. We had a couple more pints, called a cab and were home before midnight. I fended off a half hearted attempt by Cook to get me to give him a 'Nightcap Hand-job' as he charmingly put it. I was never going to repeat the other nights drug fueled shagathon with him, drunk or sober, and I think he realised that finally. Fucking Cook was a bit like eating a Mexican chilli. You feel you ought to try it once, but the come down in the morning hurts like a bitch and there's zero desire to revisit it. I regarded him as a friend first and last. Anyway, we both knew his luck wouldn't last forever. Sooner or later, even the dopey local constabulary would catch up with him. Then he would do the balance of his 6 months somewhere secure, together with the extra they added on for his little walkabout. We were nearly done here.

Next day, I woke up in my own bed. I'd bought a complete new bed set and duvet. Actually, I had pretty much remodeled the whole room since she left. The furniture was in different places, and the bed now faced away from the window, like my old one had done, back in that little yellow chalet house I had lived in until I was 16. My mum selling it, so she could have the spare cash to go travelling, was one of my biggest regrets. But this house was full of memories too now, not all of them nice ones.

I showered and changed into a pair of 3/4 jean shorts, a black tee with a slashed pink heart design on it and my blue Converses. I bunched my hair up into a messy bun and proceeded to clean the kitchen from top to bottom. My mum was due home in 4 days, and with only 2 weeks until I left for Uni, I wanted everything to look clean and neat for her. I walked down to the shops and bought a joint of beef and some vegetables. The guy at the checkout looked at me strangely when I paid...and I realised with an inward smile that he'd probably never seen me sober, or not buying bottles of cheap vodka when I shopped there. I even suffered his longing looks at my tits without comment. Fuck it...if he got a wank out of watching them wobble, who was I to deny him?

It wasn't until I had the beef and chopped potatoes and vegetables roasting in the Remoska, that Cook walked blearily into the kitchen, naked apart from a gaping pair of Calvins (It reminded me why I preferred muff to cock...That ugly thing swinging about inside his shorts had no fucking appeal at _all_ )

A half...or even better, _wholly_...naked girl was just as sexy in the morning as she was spread out under me at night. Cooks muscly torso did nothing for me.

"Put some clothes on Cook!" I yelled at him, "You'll curdle the fucking milk"

He just grinned Cook-like, back at me, scratching his balls and yawning.

"Chill out babes" he drawled "You seemed to like this bod a lot the other night"

I rolled my eyes and threw a wet tea towel over the gap in his flies.

"I needed industrial quantities of booze and powder to let you anywhere near me Cook" I said sharply " Thats never gonna happen again...you'll just have to wank over the memories"

He grinned evilly and cupped the tea towel over the bulge in his pants.

"Had one last night, actually" he chuckled " You were even more filthy in my imagination than you were in real life...and thats saying something Blondie...God loves a swallower"

"You're fucking disgusting Cook" I sniffed "I must have been out of my mind...oh yeah...I _was_ fucking out of my mind. Get dressed...I've cooked"

He finally shrugged and went upstairs to the the bathroom and showered. By the time he got down, the little table top electric oven had cooked everything perfectly. When my mum had bought it, I thought she had been having a hippy daydream. It looked like an oversized frying pan with a windowed lid. That impression lasted as long as it took to cook the first meal in it. Talk about amazing. Cooking everything in one pan, perfectly, was a students dream.

Anyway...it hadn't let me down. Succulent beef, fluffy crisp potatoes and roasted carrots and parsnips. Cook rubbed his knife and fork together like a medieval monarch getting ready to polish off a whole hog. By the time our plates were clean, we both had smiles on our faces.

"Fuck me Naomi" he boomed "A good cook and a mint shag...tell me again why you're gay? You'd make a smoking housewife babe...hot in the kitchen and nuclear in the bedroom"

I smiled at his lame compliments indulgently. I could afford to be a bit charitable. I felt 100% better, I was alcohol and drug free, and I hadn't even checked my phone for messages. And THAT wasn't something I thought I would ever admit to. Even when Emily was torturing me hardest, I had obsessively checked my texts every five minutes, just in case she had a change of heart

In fact, it wasn't until 6pm that I even remembered the phone. Cook had gone out...as usual, and I had crammed all his dirty washing into the big top loader in the utility room and settled down onto the couch to watch TV. Some shit soap or other was flicked through, then I discarded in favour of a David Attenborough documentary about Madagascar. I watched it through hooded eyes...sleepy still from the big meal we had eaten earlier.

I heard the buzz of my phone before I could locate it. It was buried under a pile of cushions on the other chair. By the time I had found it, it had gone silent.

' _Katie_ ' the contact bar said. Katie Fitch? I could count on the fingers of one finger how many times THAT had happened in the past two years, Even when Ems and I had been as loved up as its possible for two human beings to be, she had never texted me. Always through Emily...always. But there it was, large as life. Katie.

I pressed the message envelope and read it.

" _Hows it going Campbell?_ "

Well thats a surprise, I thought. She's actually concerned how I am. Pity her sister is still playing the cool card, but I felt quite pleased that Katie had bothered.

" _Actually quite good. Getting ready, packing for Uni...moving on_ " I lied shamelessly.

I know it was teasing the tiger by tweaking its tale, but actually it was partly the truth. I still missed Emily...but actually doing something constructive...cooking a meal, shopping, tidying up the kitchen and sorting out my pre study books had given me purpose. I DID feel OK.

" _Over her then?_ " came the instant reply. I thought, fuck it...I'm not texting any more. I pressed the green phone icon and heard it ring.

"Lonely?" She said gruffly,

"Not particularly" I said brightly "I just hate long text conversations"

"Not what I remember lezzer" she growled "I made the mistake of reading one of your text foreplay messages when Ems and I were in Paris...nearly scarred me for life"

I giggled...they had been rather hot. At the time, it was the only way Emily and I could communicate, with her mother supervising her actual conversations.

"Good job you never looked at the picture messages hun" I chuckled

"Especially the naked ones"

I heard the sound of exaggerated gagging from the other end and laughed out loud.

"Get that fucking image out of my head this second Campbell" she spluttered. I might have to leaf through my Musclemen magazine, just to purge my brain"

"Do you know, Katie...I've always thought you protest too much. Surely you've thought about tipping the velvet...all those long nights in your bed when you weren't old enough to get into clubs...go on...be honest"

This time there was silence, and I thought for a second I had gone too far. Katie was so determinedly hetero, I actually thought she might lose her lunch. But then I heard a small, stifled giggle before she barked back.

"Fuck _Off_ Campbell" she laughed. "You might lie in bed at night frigging yourself off to a pair of imaginary tits...its been a long time since I've had to resort to DIY"

"Pity..." I sighed...loathe to let her off...but she obviously called for a reason, and I didn't want to piss her off to the extent she hung up on me.

"Anyway..." She said slowly "Emily"

I let the word hang in the air. I didn't think that Emily would use her sister to blow me off, but I was uneasy about it all the same.

"Actually I think she's coming round" she said in a rush...and for a moment I totally misunderstood. I thought she actually meant she was physically coming round here, and I straightened up in my chair as if I had been plugged into the mains.

"H...Here?" I gabbled..."what now?"

"No you geek...not fucking coming round...coming ROUND...like she's getting to the stage where I catch her mooning at pictures of you two...and she's kicked that Mandy troll into touch. I had that demented bint on the doorstep this morning, flooding the hall with giant Shrek tears"

I know I shouldn't have grinned at that. I've had my own share of heartache over the younger Fitch twin after all. But I couldn't help the way my heart soared that Mandy was out of the picture. But I tried to play it cool, despite my pounding heart.

"Oh" I managed "Thats great"

"Unless you're a freakish giant Cave Troll, I suppose you're right" Katie said unkindly "Still, that'll leave her free to apply for the part as Fiona in the next Shrek film"

This time we laughed together.

"Still going to Goldsmiths?" she said, suddenly serious, and I understood that there was a serious point to the phone call.

"Unless I have a reason not to" I said, more firmly than I felt " I have an option on Bath and Exeter too, but I think they might be a bit close to home if...well, if things don't work out"

"When do you have to decide?" she said

"Err...yesterday really" I said sadly "Places at Goldsmiths are really hard to get. As I'm accepted, if I turn it down, thats it. They'll offer my place to someone else and that'll be it"

"Right" she murmured. "Let me talk to her..."

"No Katie" I said..." It has to be because she wants to...not because she's up against a deadline. If I don't hear from her by Friday, I'm committing to Goldsmiths. End of"

"OK" Katie said quietly, and there was definitely a note of sadness in her voice. I'm guessing she knew more about Emily's state of mind than she was letting on " If I don't talk to you before you go...have fun in London"

"Careful Katie" I snarked "You almost sound like you care"

"You don't know me very well Campbell, do you?" she said " I never actually disliked you. I hated what you did to my sister, and I resented you taking her away from me. But I love her...and what makes her happy, makes me happy. Right now, I think thats you. She's just a fucking stubborn cow. Everyone thinks I'm the hard-case. But as you fucking know to your cost, cross Emily and its a long hard road back"

"Maybe too long...too hard" I said steadily "But quite honestly Katiekins, thats out of my hands now. I've done my grovelling...cried myself to sleep enough nights. If she wants me back, I need her to show me she does"

"Yeah...I get that" Katie grunted "Anyway...I will talk to her...just not about what we've discussed. The rest is up to you two"

"Fair enough...Oh, and Katie?" I said "Thanks"

"K" she said, and hung up.

I sighed and threw the phone at the cushions. It bounced off and landed on the thick rug next to the fire. The same rug I'd screwed Sophia on months before. Suddenly David Attenborough had lost his appeal, lemurs or not.

XXX

Well, whatever Katie said to her...it didn't work. Silence.

OK, didn't check my phone more than 100 times a day, and I didn't obsessively watch the street and the park opposite for signs of Emily hourly, like I used to. And I didn't play _Said the People_ on loop like I used to either, but I'm not going to pretend it didn't hurt just as fucking much as it always did when there was an Emily Fitch sized hole in my world.

I did all the things I promised myself I would. By the time my mum and Kieran got back at the weekend, I had moved Cook into the brick shed in the back garden. He was happy enough there. It had a camp bed, stove and bar heater. He could come and go, silently, just how he liked it...in the middle of the night, usually. He'd finally got over his single minded pursuit of my clitoris, now he'd bagged it once, well, more than once, I heard ecstatic moaning coming from that direction after midnight. Fuck knows how, but he still managed to corner more than his fair share of spare fanny when he wanted to.

My mum was less than impressed with us harbouring a wanted fugitive, but after the shit she put me through when I was younger, with numerous randoms flopping in my bedroom over the years, it was accepted with just a perfunctory grumble.

I wish I could say the same about the way she took the news about me and Ems splitting up. I got both barrels from her, and an entirely unexpected bollocking from Kieran to go with it. She calmed down a bit after hearing what I'd gone through lately, in trying to win Emily back, but it was three days before she spoke to me in anything other than clipped sentences.

But every day of silence from the Fitch household told its own story, and my mum could see my growing agitation. Finally, she sat me down in the kitchen, and we had a rare heart to heart over some frankly disgusting chamomile tea.

"So..." She said, blowing on the flowery concoction in her mug "We are where we are. You fucked up...again...Emily found out. Gave you the months long silence and sarcasm routine, cheated on you to get her own back...you two have a face to face, courtesy of your criminal friend and her sister...and now the balls in Emily's court...but she hasn't bent"

"Sounds about right" I muttered, finally losing patience with the liquid shite in my mug and throwing it in the sink where it belonged. I grabbed a carton of cranberry juice from the fridge and poured myself a glass. "To be honest, mum, I think its too late...she's moved on. Too much has happened. I hurt her too much"

My mum nodded sadly " You might be right" she said in a quiet voice. "Emily is almost as stubborn as you. But you deserve an answer of some sort...even if its thanks, but no thanks. Have you tried calling her?"

I shook my head quickly.

"No mum...and I'm not going to. I've grovelled, I've pleaded and I've begged. She said she wanted time. I've got less than 2 weeks until I leave for freshers week at Goldsmiths, and I still have to confirm my place in the student lodgings. Its up to Emily now...its too late for me to start changing everything for her again"

"What about Goa?" My mum said "All that summer working to pay for the tickets...are you just going to write them off?

Again I shook my head.

"Mum...Goa was always Emily's dream, not mine. I would have been just as happy sharing a damp bedsit in New Cross with her as lying on an Indian beach. If she wants to use them...she can"

My mum shook her head sadly.

"Oh Naomi" she sighed "I was so happy when you two got together. She was good for you...she made you happier than I've seen you since you were a little girl. Its so sad you lost that chance"

She took a deep breath and held my hand across the table.

"But you're right. Whats done is done. I know its going to be hard. But go to Goldsmiths, get that first class degree and get on with your life. I know it doesn't feel like it now, but it will get better. There's someone out there for you"

Which is about the truest, but emptiest phrase my mother had used in my lifetime. I knew she was right, I knew it was true, but it stuck in my head like a fish bone in the throat. I knew I COULD go on without Emily Fitch in my life. Its just that it felt like looking over the edge of a vast, empty precipice. I didn't fucking _want_ to jump.

This time I drew in a big breath, and blew it out slowly.

"Yeah..." I sadly "Looks like I'll have to start again. I think me and Emily...we're done"

Like that wasn't the single hardest thing to admit to myself, let alone articulate.

XXX

So...a week or so later, and I was in my room, getting ready to go out. Not on a date, but I'd agreed to meet up with Karen McClair of all people. I know everyone thought she made Katie Fitch appear deep and thoughtful, but she'd sort of got over her Ass to Ass contact period and grown up a bit. Losing Freddie as well as her mum had made her a bit more serious, a bit less shallow. She'd bumped into me when I was out getting a new wardrobe for my Uni adventure. I had managed to avoid taking 90% of her fashion advice...I prefer to keep my tits hidden...or at least my nipples when going out at night. But we had coffee, talked fondly about her brother and I avoided letting her know about Cooks part in the discovery of Freddies gruesome death, and Fosters beaten body. The Police were no closer to solving that particular mystery, and I wasn't planning on being the chief witness.

Anyway, we agreed to meet up again, and after she found out I was off to Uni on Monday, she insisted we go out one last time in Bristol before I disappeared for 6 months.

So there I was, black lace underwear under a blue silk top and white jeggings. Not my usual night time costume, but Karen had insisted they looked 'hot' on me. I had to agree, even if the wide spaced buttons on the top gave everyone a better view of my tits in the push up bra than I was used to.

Karen was very comfortable with my sexuality. We had both experienced the Cook treatment, her a year before me...and both of us giggled a bit over his undoubted prowess with 'Little Cookie' as he regularly misdescribed his dick. I told her it was a one off, never to be repeated, and she nodded rapidly. She'd shagged Cook a couple of times inside the very epicentre of Cooks self destruction period, and I think she considered herself a lucky survivor, considering the wounded victims he left scattered about in those days.

So after a last squirt of Chloe and a quick look in the hall mirror, I waved to my mum and ran out to the waiting taxi.

Two hours later, I was feeling no pain whatsoever. Three pints and about 7 shots took care of my reluctance to party. We had teased and flipped off at least three groups of hopeful males. Obviously, I was never going down THAT road again, and even Karen seemed to believe that tonight was definitely a 'go girls' night.. So we let them buy us drinks and left with a wave and a wiggle...giggling our way along the street to the next bar.

I don't even remember the name of the club we ended up at. I think it was after 11 that Karen undid another button on her top and allowed her nipples to gain us access without queuing. Anyway, two more shots later, and a line of whizz, and we started dancing up a storm. We got the usual hard ons pressed to our arses, but a quick mutual snog put most of the guys off trying anything more unsubtle. I was never gonna shag Karen. Although she'd admitted to having screwed a couple of Tony Stonems ex girlfriends a while back...I think she was always more of a cock cruncher. Not one of _us_ , I thought giddily, while I still had the power of rational thought.

Strangely enough...although I was about as pissed as I ever get, notwithstanding the sobering effects of the amphetamines rushing through my system, I sobered up pretty quick when I broke away from Karen and headed to the other side of the club, where the toilets were.

I didn't walk in on her screwing some random. I suppose, to be fair, she might not have even intended to screw anyone. But by the looks of the other girl, tall, the long blonde hair right down her back...she might not have had an option if I'd come along ten minutes later. The girl was nuzzling her neck, and I could see her hands wandering dangerously close to the bottom of Emily's tiny skirt. She didn't see me at first. The other girl was whispering in her ear and she had her head back, laughing. But when I got close enough to touch, she saw me alright.

"OK Emily?" I said bitterly, amazed that my voice sounded so level, when my insides were churning. The other girl turned her head and regarded me defensively, her hands tightening around my ex girlfriends waist possessively.

"Naomi...I..I mean...oh _shit_ " Emily said, face suddenly ashen, instead of flushed with anticipation.

"Nice to see you enjoying yourself" I spat "I'll take it _this_..." I pointed at her 'friend' standing there "...is your answer?"

"No...I mean...its not like tha..."

"Yes it is Emily" I leaned closer until her eyes widened "Its _exactly_ what it looks like. I'm leaving Sunday. Don't phone or text...and **d** **on't** call round"

She dropped her eyes as I glared.

"I'd say I'll see you around sometime...but I'd be a fucking liar. Goodbye Emily"

With that, I forgot my need for a pee and walked straight back to where Karen was dancing with some rugby player type. A few terse words, which she barely acknowledged and I was out of there.

I think I heard someone calling after me as I walked quickly down the street, looking for a passing cab,, but I kept my head up and my face fixed forwards. Tomorrow is another day...even with tears stinging my eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

Naomi

Goldsmiths was...overwhelming. From the madness of registration to the impossible lottery of finding a decent room mate in student halls, it blew my mind. It certainly had the welcome effect of obliterating any chance I had of brooding over...her.

Well, for as long as it lasted, anyway. Within a week, I had started to memorise the local geography and actually find my correct lecture hall and study group. My fellow undergrads were an eclectic mix of nationalities and ethnic groups. My professors were the usual combination of the socially inept and the frankly weird, but even in a week or so, I could see I had my work cut out keeping up. Those three A's might have impressed the other kids at Roundview, but here, it was as common as house flies. Everywhere I looked, there were grade A students and overachievers. From being the class geek, I was relegated to being just about OK.

So my first decision was to work like a fucking dog to improve myself beyond the normal. We had the inevitable Freshers Ball, which was as lame and predictable as the Love Ball had been at Roundview. Just without the cat-fights or declarations of love from beautiful brunettes. I stayed determinedly sober (ish) despite the best attempts by spotty males called Crispin and hopeful home counties girls with ' _I'm all about_ _experiments_ ' tattooed on their foreheads. The last thing I wanted was a relationship, closely followed by a sticky fumble with a sweaty student. Neither was on my to do list.

So I drank little, smiled a bit, and generally polished my ice queen tiara like a good girl. Judging by the photos and comments the next day on the Goldsmiths freshers Facebook pages the next day... I was wise. Some peoples reputations had already hit rock bottom, before the first term even started properly. Blow jobs and park fountains don't make good morning after publicity shots...

So, in short, I got my head down and became the study princess I had been at college, before I lost my heart to a dark eyed beauty with hair bows.

Emily?... Couldn't tell you. The one favour my mother did me before I left Bristol, was to buy me a brand new phone. The fact that I'd smashed my old one by throwing it against my bedroom wall when it rang for the 10,000th time the day after I walked away from Emily is neither here or there. What it gave me the opportunity to do was pretty much erase my previous life. I got a new sim with my contract, and proceeded to airbrush certain things...and people out of it. So out went the contact details of the Fitch twins as priority number one. All I ended up with was Karen and Cook from my old life. Theirs were the only numbers I held on to.

Oh yeah...Cook. He got busted a week after I got on the train to London. Brawling in a city centre bar is not what I call laying low, but I suppose it was inevitable. The fact that the pub was a hangout for half the Bristol off duty police force sort of sealed the deal.

So Cook got 6 more months for affray and 4 months added on for going walkabout from the open prison he had been in. Now he was banged up in a place he couldn't walk away from. I wrote to him, but Cook never was much of a wordsmith. He asked for naked pictures. I declined, obviously...friendship only goes so far.

So after 3 months here, I felt I was really finding my feet. I started sharing a room with a Korean student called Lin, but she moved in with another Asian girl who was on the same undergrad course. I stayed in a lot, phoned my mum at weekends, making sure never to ask questions, or allow them, if they included the _E_ word. The studying got harder, but I found that my newly acquired sobriety allowed me to keep up pretty well.

I spent weekends being a tourist. Tower of London, the Eye, Parliament and old churches became my new best friends. It was dull most of the time, and my eyes ached from too many books during the week and too much building gazing at weekends, but I managed to fill my days with enough stuff to blank out anything else.

The nights were another matter of course...

Emily flavoured dreams were getting fewer, but they could still be pretty intense. More than once I woke sweating with the image of Sophia jumping off that ledge burned into my brain. My guilt at betraying my ex first mingled with my anger at the way she had over punished me. It didn't make happy dreaming. I was determined not to self medicate, and so it was a relief when they tapered off during the third month.

I kept my solitary lifestyle up, even during the term break and endured the surprised looks of my fellow students, and badgering by my mother to come home. I was already ahead with my work, and I figured a weeks hard studying while everyone else was at home would get me back up into the top 10% place I had been used to in my previous schools.

So when I got my visitors, I was doubly pissed off. It was Saturday afternoon. I'd just queued with the other tourists to do a tour of Parliament for the second time since I'd been here. My major being Politics, I wanted to be able to breathe the air of the House and Commons chamber. Just standing there gave me shivers. This was my goal...the reason for all the hard work and sacrifice.

I got back to my student hall at about 5, and as the lift doors closed on me, saw the old guy who acted as our Porter and guard dog waving to me from his office. If I had been able to see twenty seconds into the future, I would have opened the fucking doors and found out what he wanted. But I didn't.

I opened my door and stepped into the tiny dark inner lobby. Hanging my coat and scarf onto the hook on the wall, I started to take off my tee and skirt. Being alone in a two person flat has its advantages. Stripping off clothes and walking about in my underwear was one of them. I was wearing a blue striped bra and knicker set my mum had bought me for Christmas last year. The bra was getting a bit tight and I made a promise to myself as I looked at my reflection in the hall mirror, to ease up on the comfort eating. It _was_ winter, and it hadn't given me any love handles just yet, but I could tell that little miss 34c was struggling to cope.

I opened the bedroom cum lounge door and jumped as if I had been stung by an army of hornets. Sitting on my bed...holding shot glasses with presumably my single malt scotch in them, was Katie Fitch...and Effy fucking Stonem.

They stared at me...I stared at them. It was me who broke the silence.

"What the _**FUCK**_?" I said in a voice which wobbled alarmingly "Who...I mean, how..?"

Effy smirked her mysterious smirk and let her eyes do a tour of my body. Katie just stared, before delivering one of her trademark put downs.

"Fucking hell, Naomi...I only had to flash my cleavage to get the old fucker to let us in...what did you give him...a blow job?"

They giggled companionably and I felt my anger bubbling up inside me like hot lava.

"I asked you a _question_ " I said fiercely, which isn't easy when you have nothing but your dignity to cover yourself with.

"Actually you didn't Naomi" Effy observed drily. "You spluttered...its not quite what I expected from Miss University 2017, but hey ho..."

She took another swallow of the expensive scotch Kieran had bought me before I left Bristol and eyed me again.

"Maybe you would feel a bit more comfortable if you put this on?" she drawled, holding up my Foo Fighters tee, which I'd left on the bed before going out this morning.

I took it from her wordlessly, but my eyes were shooting cold fire at both of them. Waste of fucking time, of course. Katie was immune to my venom, and I'm sure Effy's metabolism originates on Jupiter, so she's equally impervious to my anger. I sighed, slipped the tee over my head and sat heavily on the upright chair next to my desk.

"So...why are you here...unannounced... of course...and who said you could just invade my privacy like this?"

My voice was deliberately harsh. I didn't want this...these two...here. This was _MY_ new life...my world...away from Bristol, old friends and enemies...and with chilling certainty I realised this was about Emily. It was the only reason Katie would travel all this way, out of her town, her comfort zone.

"You need to come back to Bristol" Katie said, flashing an unmistakeable jet of Fitch fire from her dark eyes.

"Are you having a fucking _laugh_?" I choked. "In case you hadn't noticed Katie...I have a new life here...new friends (yeah..OK, I _know_ ) new things to do, places to see...why the fuck would I ever want to go near the shithole called Bristol ever again?"

I swear my eyes must have been actually goggling, because I'm sure I saw Effy smother a chuckle at my expression.

Katie stood up and walked over to me.

"Because Emily needs you...fuck, _I_ need you"

My brain honestly wouldn't process this, and I stared at her with total shock.

"Katie...Emily hasn't _needed_ me for fucking months...she never even tried...and _you_? You've never needed anything from me in your life. What the actual fuck are you talking about?"

Katie looked at me seriously for another moment before looking back at Eff.

Effy stared back at her impassively.

"Tell her" she said simply.

Katie turned back, and what frightened me immediately was that suddenly there was no fire in her eyes at all. Instead, they were dull, defeated.

"You have to come back" she almost whispered. "Emily has tried to kill herself...twice"

I don't think I have ever heard a more shocking statement in my life.

"W...what?" I mumbled, holding my hand up to my mouth "Eff?"

She just nodded sadly. "Its true. She went completely off the rails when you left. Drink, drugs, women...but it was never enough. She OD'd on something after a night out and we thought she'd got it out of her system. But then she tried to throw herself off a car park rooftop in the town. Just dumb luck a security guard was parking his car and stopped her...and then...last week...she tried again...wrists and vodka this time"

"Jesus" I whispered "poor Ems...but...Katie..are you saying this is about me? Because I thought she made it quite clear before I left that she was finished with me. Not a word for weeks, and then I saw her in that club...with a girl"

"She was doing what you did Campbell" Katie said sadly "Fucking self medicating. She knew it was wrong...but it was her way of dealing with how she felt. When you fucked off and wouldn't take her calls, she locked herself in her room and nearly drank herself to death. Then that wasn't enough...she started to hunt out drugs...weed at first, but then some cunt gave her prescription downers. Between them and E's, she was up and down like a fucking yo yo"

"But... what can I do?" I stammered.

"You can fucking _CARE?_ " Katie spat, suddenly igniting that fire again.

"I never stopped caring Katie" I said defensively "I just stopped hurting myself over her"

"I know.." she said weakly "Believe me...if there was anyone else I could turn to...any other place I could go...I would. It isn't easy for me...here...like this...but she's my sister...and for some fucking reason she thinks your 'it'...the sodding end of the rainbow. You two tear each other apart when you're together...but separate...you don't work at all... _do_ you?"

My head told me otherwise, but my heart was screaming louder.

"Where is she?" I said, my treacherous head reminding me that I had an essay due Monday, one that wouldn't wait.

"Bristol Royal" Effy interrupted "There's a train at 7?"

I didn't stop to think. Thinking meant trying to rationalise what I was doing. Going back to Bristol...to my past...to Emily. I picked up my laptop, stuffed some clothes haphazardly into a duffel and grabbed my purse.

Three hours later we were 10 miles out from Temple Meads. I'd spent most of the journey looking out of the carriage into the darkness. My head kept trying to interject...probing me for the reason I had dropped everything and run to her...again.

But what choice did I have? Forget the simple humanity involved in going to the side of a person in serious pain. This was Emily. _My_ Emily. OK...she hadn't actually been mine for a while now. From what Katie and Effy had said in the first hour travelling, before I shut down and looked away, she had been pretty much anybodies recently. My heart ached at how low she must have felt to behave like that. The sweet and innocent Emily who had laid on my bedroom floor with me and giggled over election catch phrases and ' _what lesbians...do_ ' . Reduced to giving herself to randoms against scuzzy toilet walls. More than once I felt the nausea rise in my throat at the idea of that happening.

The train pulled in a few minutes later and we exited the station silently. The Royal was only a few minutes walk from Temple Meads, but I wanted to be there quicker, so we got in a cab. A few minutes talking to a receptionist and then we were in a lift and walking along darkened corridors to her ward. We shouldn't have been there at all, this late, but as Emily was in a side ward, and under the care of a Consultant Psychiatrist as well as the medical team, Effy used her mystical persuasion skills to get us in.

I stood outside the chipped grey door for a second, bracing myself before going in.

"Would you mind if I go in on my own?" I said to Katie finally.

"She's not expecting to see you Naomi" Katie said "I didn't tell her I was going to London"

"Still..." i whispered "I need to do this my way?"

"K" Katie' nodded "Best behaviour tho, yeah? She's a bit... fragile"

It was my turn to nod.

When I opened the door and pushed my way inside, I stopped within 2 feet of the door. It was a small side ward. The bed was to my right. The lights had been dimmed, and I could only just make out a small figure in the bed. A shock of red hair told me who it was. She was asleep. That beautiful, angelic face peaceful, at least for now. Both her arms were on top of the cream bed cover and both wrists covered in a thick layer of bandage. When I got closer, I could see the dark shadows under her eyes, and the small white scars further up her arms. Jesus...Katie wasn't kidding, she had tried this before.

Suddenly a huge swell of emotion surged through me.

" _You_ did this" my conscience tormented me "maybe not now...but you started this whole downwards spiral off. Look at her...damaged, maybe beyond repair. Was it worth it...that frantic shag on the living room carpet...fucking _LOOK_ at her!"

The sob that escaped my throat surprised me. It was so raw, so painful, I felt my eyes tear up. I staggered to the bedside and looked down at her sweet face.

"Em?" I whispered, but she only frowned slightly.

I reached out a trembling hand and touched her arm. It was cool and smooth. Her eyes fluttered but stayed closed.

"Oh my darling..." I sobbed "...what have I _done_ to you?"

I couldn't stop myself. This was bigger than anger, bigger than jealousy or betrayal. Suddenly I couldn't bear to be this close to her and not touch her properly. I took off my coat and scarf, throwing my bag and laptop on the chair. I pulled the bed cover back and slid in beside her. She was warm under the sheet, wearing one of those stupid back fastening gowns they give you in hospital to completely remove your dignity. I slid one arm under her neck and gently moved her sideways so I could hold her. It was like coming home. Her face was slightly turned to me, and I saw her eyelashes flutter as I laid my head on the pillow next to hers. Slowly her eyes opened.

"N...Naomi?" She said

"Shhh" I whispered. "I'm here Ems...no one is going to hurt you ever again"

Stupid promise, I know...but I meant it.

"Oh...Naomi" she choked, and those big tears I knew so well filled her eyes "I missed you so much"

I lifted my hand and brushed them away, cupping her face.

"I'm here...and thats all you need to worry about now"

She nodded and leaned forward to kiss me. Her lips were dry and chapped, but I would swap that kiss for any I had shared with her. It was hesitant, chaste and brief, but when we parted, the look on her face was worth every mile I had travelled to get here.

"You're not going to leave me again, are you?" She said, searching my eyes for any sign of desertion.

What could I say? " _Sorry Emily...I know you're suicidal and all, but I have an important essay I need to get in for Monday. Nice to see you"_

So I lied.

"I'll never leave you again baby" I said quietly "Sleep now...I'm not going anywhere"

Well, it was partly true, wasn't it?

A few minutes later, two heads popped round the door, followed by the rest of Effy Stonem and Katie Fitch. The smiles I got from them made me feel even worse as Emily's soft breath brushed my neck. I'd just lied to the love of my life...again. How was I going to dig myself out of this fucking pile of treacherous shite?

XXX

I woke up a while later, one arm stiff and numb. Emily was awake and looking at me. Her face creased into a small smile when she saw my eyes open. God I'd missed her looking at me like that. I used to call her out for perving on me while I was asleep, but secretly I loved that she was so besotted with me, cantankerous, sarcastic Naomi Campbell.

"Hey" she said huskily. I missed that too. The morning voice, I used to call it.

"Hey you" I answered "How are you feeling?"

"A million times better now you're here" she smiled. "Did you mean what you said...about not leaving me?"

Jesus, I thought, just like Emily, straight to the point. She was more like Katie than it seemed sometimes.

"I meant I'll never be apart from you again" I said, truthfully this time. I had no fucking idea how this was going to work. I wasn't about to give up all my dreams. But coming back here...seeing her broken and damaged, meant I couldn't get back on a train and just pretend it was all in my past. Lying with her here, even in a sterile hospital bed, reminded me that I never felt like this with anyone else. I didn't want to wake up next to anyone other than Emily Fitch, broken or not.

"But I need a promise from you" I said seriously. She nodded

"This stops now. All this self destructive shit. You're precious to me...to your sister...to your family. I never want to feel like I did last night again. I love you...but I'm not your doormat, OK"

This time, when she nodded, the tears were back.

"Sorry" she whispered "I just...I can't be without you...I tried, but...it hurts too much"

I smiled.

"I know...I've got a gold medal in denial, but Emily Fitch just keeps sneaking past the old Campbell defences"

She smiled too and kissed me again. This time it was longer, more open mouthed, and both of us moaned slightly as it ended.

"Probably best if your doctor doesn't walk in on us shagging Ems" I said ruefully " I don't think thats in the treatment book"

Her eyes sparkled, which was the first time I had seen them like that in months.

"Are you sure" she said huskily, and I felt a familiar twinge at being in bed with her.

"Pretty sure" I smirked, lifting an eyebrow, which made her chuckle quietly.

"Seriously though Ems" I said "We need to get you better...then we can get out of here and figure out what we do next"

Her eyes clouded and the smile disappeared instantly.

"You're not leaving" she asked, her voice rising in panic.

I took her free hand in mine and shook my head.

"I promised you...and I'm not about to go back on that Emily" I said firmly "I'm staying put. I still need to finish my education...and so do you...but wherever we do that...we do it together, right"

"But you're in London...and I'm in Bristol...how is it going to be possible?"

"Details" I said, finally managing to extricate my useless, frozen arm from under her head as she sat up in agitation " We're bigger than this. Concentrate on getting well. I'm staying right here until you're better. Then wherever we go...we go together...OK?"

She nodded her head uncertainly. I knew what was going through her mind, but it was all I could offer at the moment. I had no idea how the hell this was going to work.


	6. Chapter 6

Naomi

I thought it was going to be hard. But not as hard as it turned out to be. Not the ' _Me and Emily_ ' bit. That slotted back into place like it had never been broken. No, I mean the million peripheral, inconsequential things that turned out to be very very fucking consequential. Dealing with Goldsmiths was hard, dealing with my own inner doubts about changing my plans was _HARDER_.

I spoke to the college counsellor and my year tutor. Because I was about 6 weeks in advance of my average, I was told I could take 4 weeks sabbatical to nurse the love of my life back to health. While she was being poked and prodded by the medical team, having her stitches out and dealing with the physical residue of her suicide attempts, I got to have an excruciating meeting with the head psych consultant. He was still really concerned that a small setback would be devastating for Emily. I had to promise, under pain of death, to be absolutely clear with her what my plans were.

He was understandably concerned that if we got back together and then split again, certainly in the short term, Emily might go through with another attempt on her own life, this time successfully. There was no way I could quantify how huge a responsibility that laid on me. I had no doubt that I loved her. None whatsoever. But nothing's forever, is it?

The uncertainties and events that had shattered our love recently weren't foreseen. How the fuck could I propose 'forever' when I didn't even know how to get through the next week?

But I was never going to say no, was I? I even phoned my mum for advice, an event so rare, interstellar transport is more common.

"You already know what you're going to do Naomi" she said unhelpfully.

"I know you love Emily... _you_ know you love Emily...but are you sure _SHE_ knows you love her?"

"What sort of fucked up double speak is that, Mum?" I barked impatiently "I wanted some advice...if I'd wanted psychobabble, the quacks here have reams of it to spare"

My mother being immune to my venom, having been bitten so many times in the past, didn't even pause.

"All you can do is be true to yourself. Taking a short break from Goldsmiths to get Emily back on her feet is a good, honourable thing. Throwing away the whole university dream for a love affair would be a very bad thing. I know this goes against a lifetime of habit...but have you considered actually talking to Emily about things? I seem to remember you getting into this mess in the first place because you ran from her"

She was right, of course, in that totally annoying way mothers are right when you desperately need them not to be.

So I talked to her. I talked to her in the hospital, in between medical treatments. I talked to her in the consultants waiting room when we were waiting for him to discharge her into my care...yeah, you heard that right, my fucking care. She couldn't go home...after a single encounter with the monster formerly known as Jenna Fitch...we both instinctively knew that wasn't a goer. If Jenna hated me before, she loathed me now. It was all my fault, of course. Emily being gay...Emily being rebellious...Emily having a tiny birthmark on the inside of her thigh (OK, I made that one up) But mainly Emily trying to off herself twice...that was _definitely_ my fault according to the Queen Fitch Bitch

Jenna actually got physically ejected from the hospital the day she came to visit and found me by Emily's bedside. First she cracked me a good one across the mouth just for being there, which hurt like a bitch...then she had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the ward for calling down fire and brimstone on me for 'corrupting' her precious daughter. Sadly for her, my own mum was just coming up the corridor to see Emily. One look at my bruised and bloodied face and my mum was back out of the room on a mission.

I heard a sharp smack, then a yell of pain...tainted with a Scottish accent, and I allowed myself a small smirk, quickly smothered in case Emily saw it...because I knew my mum had meted out a small measure of revenge on my behalf. My mum always comes across as a dippy hippy chick, but I remember when the guy next door tried to get me (unsuccessfully) to show him my juvenile tits in the woods when I was 12. My mum had to be hauled off him by two burly coppers. She's not to be messed with when her offspring is threatened.

Anyway. I got Emily back to our house in Alfred Road, and my mum did her usual earth mother bit for both of us. She was just about to go over to Ireland with Kieran, visiting his relatives (he has about 10,000) so we were going to have the place to ourselves for a couple of weeks.

I got back to studying, in between cooking Emily meals (OK...phoning takeaways) and generally spoiling her. She certainly wasn't herself yet, but as I pretty much abstained completely from booze and cigarettes for the duration, and the only drugs in the house were Paracetamol, gradually some colour came back into her cheeks, and I saw the old Emily emerging from the broken chrysalis she had been entombed in.

A week after she moved in...things got better...well, in one way at least. Although we had been sleeping together...we hadn't been _sleeping_ together. I didn't know about her, but it was as frustrating as hell for me. She slept in one of my old tees, as she always had done, and I kept my knickers and tee on...which wasn't my normal style at all. I'd slept naked since I was 13, and I missed the freedom. But I did it because we had an uncomfortable habit of waking up entwined. Legs, arms and once at least...with her hands cupping my tits from behind. I think she was asleep, but waking up with Emily Fitch thumbing my nipples was far too pleasant. I jumped out of bed and had an entirely unwelcome cold shower. It wasn't my last.

It came to a head on the Sunday after she got out of hospital. It was about 9 in the morning, and every other time I had woken up, semi naked or otherwise, with Ems in my bed on Sundays, it had always resulted in at least an hours exhausting sex.

So this morning, I woke first. She was on her back, breathing slowly. God, she looked so beautiful, lying there. She had thrown the duvet off herself in the night, and the tee had ridden up above her knickers. One leg was up and slightly bent, so I could see the crease of her sex in the tight, white cotton of her knickers. My mouth went dry as my mind went into overload at the possibilities her body promised. I knew every single inch of it, but it still gave me goosebumps.

I just didn't know if she was ready for real sex yet. We'd kissed and groped a lot that week, but I always stopped before it got too heated. Apart from the physical state of her body, I was worried that making love to her would trigger memories of club toilets and anonymous fucks with randoms. Oh, and of course, my usual cowardice came into it...

So I sighed and braced myself for yet another freezing shower. I pulled my arm out from under pillow and sat up, before easing my legs out of bed. I'd just straightened up, turning away towards the bathroom, when a husky voice stopped me in my tracks.

"Naomi?" she said softly

I spun round, trying not to look too surprised

"Don't you fancy me anymore" she said

I just stared at her.

"Of course I do..." I said quickly "Its just...you know...I want you to be _well_ before you worry about that..."

I stopped because she was looking at me with that patented raised Fitch eyebrow.

"Do you want me to show you _how_ well I am" she smiled.

I nodded and sat down heavily on the end of the bed. My fucking legs were trembling.

She threw the rest of the duvet off her legs and smiled at me.

"I want _this_...she whispered " More than anything in the world"

With that, she plumped a pillow up under her head and pulled her tee up above her waist. My mouth went even drier.

She started to stroke her own thighs slowly and my eyes followed her hands in awe. Watching Emily get herself off had always been one of my favourite activities, but after weeks of self imposed abstinence, this was going to be epic.

"You can watch, Naomi..." she said hoarsely, "or you can join in...but why don't you just enjoy the show for a while?"

I nodded like one of those stupid fake dogs people put on the parcel shelf of their cars. I had all sorts of reasons queuing up in my mind why this was a bad idea. She wasn't well enough...It was too soon...maybe we should wait another week. But the sight of those brown eyes almost black with desire froze them in my throat.

She parted her legs slightly and moistened her lips with a quick, pink tongue. The twinge I got between my legs seeing that made me shudder, and she saw that too. Her eyes widened. We both knew what that tongue could do.

"You've always been able to make me wet" she whispered "Even before we were together. Sometimes, in class, I had to go to the nurses station and...take care of myself...just because you bit your lip, or I caught a glimpse of the way your breasts moved under your top"

I bit my lip unconsciously, and she groaned... reaching up to cup a small breast.

"Still making me _wet_..." she hissed.

"Me too..." I said, my eyes fixed on her hands. The other one had started to draw a light line up the crease in her white briefs and I realised the line was now damp with excitement.

"Christ, Emily" I groaned "If you knew what this is doing to me...did you really finger yourself over me...even then?"

"Oh yeah" she moaned "Lots of times. I didn't need the internet. One bounce of Naomi Campbells boobs and I was away"

My mouth hung open. She'd looked so innocent and sweet in those days...all hair bows and pinafore dresses. The thought of her, locked in the nurses station, dress hiked up round her waist, diddling herself over me was...mind blowing.

"Fuck Emily" I gasped..."I wish I'd known...I'd have fucking loved to see that"

"Perv..." she giggled. "I think I still have that blue button dress...would you like to see me with my hands in my knickers, getting off for you in that?"

I groaned again...its lucky we were almost the same age...I'd get locked up for thinking what I was thinking then if I'd been any older.

"I'm watching you now Ems" I said through gritted teeth, "and its just as exciting...don't stop babe...I'm so hot for you right now"

"Oh...I'm not stopping...at least till you lose it...and stop treating me like a china doll. I won't break...but I will bend a lot...you just have to press me in the right places"

Her breathing got shorter and she lost patience with the underwear and top...tugging them off roughly and tossing them aside. Now when she relaxed back onto the pillow, I could see the neat little black triangle between her legs...and then I heard the first small liquid sound as her finger penetrated... This time, when she moaned, her legs opened wider and I swallowed hard. Jesus, I could almost taste her...that indefinable, sweet Emily taste...tart but syrupy...totally addictive.

"Take your clothes _off_ " she ordered, and I stripped the tee off before tugging my girl shorts down and throwing them aside. I sat back on the bed cross legged and stared hungrily at Emily, who was now naked too and circling her clit while still cupping and squeezing her petite breasts. It was a sight that could give a dead man a hard on...although I hoped to God no man would ever get to see it...or woman for that matter.

Her fingers got faster, and the wet sounds were driving me crazy.

"Touch yourself baby...I want to watch you too" she groaned. I was a bit shyer than Ems about doing that in front of her...even when we'd been together at first...I'd needed persuading, but I didn't hesitate this time. Her body was stunning, especially when she was touching herself, so my own fingers found my wetness immediately.

We stared at each other in fascination. Her eyes on my fingers, mine on hers. I knew I wouldn't take long...weeks without getting off were guaranteeing that, but it didn't look like she would be far behind me. Our fingers worked together, mirroring our mounting excitement. No finesse any more, just rough circles...Emily's other hand moving down to push straight fingers inside her...she'd always loved deep penetration just before she came.

"Fuck Ems...I'm there..." I gasped..."I need to uh...taste you"

She knew straight away what I wanted and nodded, even as I moved forwards. Her clit must have been singing...right on the verge of sending that last, high voltage signal to her brain...but as always...she let me have my way with her.

I lurched forward, stopping my frantic circles and covered her sex with my mouth. She felt incredible. Wet, open and heated. My fingers slid inside her...all three stiff and thrusting quickly. I sucked on her super-sensitive clit hard, and her hips came off the bed so she was arched up, quivering. I hummed in delight as her fingers tore at my hair. She was hurting me...but it was a good hurt this time.

"Oh baby...I'm _coming_!" She screamed, her hips rocking against my movements. I was almost ecstatic, despite the fact that I'd stopped stimulating myself seconds ago. I was high on Emily's joy. She moaned, she trembled and she swore like a sailor...and I loved every fucking second of it. When she tried to push my mouth away, too sensitive for even the softness of my tongue, I growled like a lioness with prey and clawed at her thighs possessively. Instead, I slowed my licking, avoiding the swollen bud between my lips and tracing patterns round it instead...

She writhed and bucked as I built her up again. Five minutes passed and her protests faded. Soon she was holding my head in both hands, rocking gently against my mouth.

I lifted off her just once to speak

"Again..." I murmured "I'm gonna make you come again"

She whimpered in surrender and her hands fell away, moving above her head to grip the rail of the headboard.

I know it wasn't a question, but I slowed to a slow mouthing until she cried out in frustration.

"Please?" she keened "Don't tease baby"

I wasn't about to, and increased the pace...Soon she was rolling those perfect hips, increasing the pressure of my tongue on her clit. Her moans and gasps filled the room, and I was grateful for my mothers absence. Emily was always a screamer, and more than once, when I'd been 'entertaining her' after college, I had heard the front door slam as my mum had beat a hasty retreat from the verbal pyrotechnics upstairs.

Soon enough, she was thrashing and groaning her way through another explosive orgasm. This time I let her subside slowly, just kissing and nipping the inside of her smooth thighs as her breathing returned to normal.

I worked my way up her body, a kiss here, a light bite there, until I was lying over her, nuzzling her neck.

"No one...fucking _NO_ ONE can make me feel like that" she said quietly, and looking up, I could see her eyes fill with tears "Please believe that Naoms...I never want to be anywhere but with you from now on...promise?"

"I promise" I said quietly "There's never been anyone else to compare to you either...I love you baby...OK?"

She nodded silently and I reached up to brush the tears away.

"But I think I'm in orgasm deficit here hun..I think you need to whisper a few more schoolgirl confessions in my ear...while you're...fucking my brains... out"

She laughed huskily and spun me round, till I was underneath her.

"Oh yeah..." she breathed in my ear, making me shiver "Oh fuck yeah,..I have a _lot_ of confessions to make...I was a VERY naughty girl when I was 16...do you remember the time we went swimming with Effy and Katie and we did topless dares?"

I did...and the thought of what Emily was going to confess made me tighten on her probing fingers...this wasn't going to take long...at least not the first time...

XXX

When we were lying together, sated...happy...Emily cried a little. I thought it was just relief and happiness, but she turned towards me and whispered.

"I love you..."

"I know" I interrupted "I love you too...and we're gonna make this thing work now...just concentrate on getting better...everything else will work out. I know it"

"Its not that Naoms" she said quietly, and I knew there was more to this conversation than a simple declaration of love. Suddenly that cold feeling was back in the pit of my stomach.

"Then what?" I said sharply...surely she wouldn't be having second thoughts now...after all we'd been through?

"I did some things...things I was ashamed of...when we were apart...I need to tell you about them...I don't want you to find out from anyone else?"

My mind was singing with apprehension, but I made myself say the words.

"What things?"

"I was raped" she said flatly...and I nearly passed out with shock

"Raped?" I said dumbly "But thats fucked up...why didn't you go to the police or something...and anyway, thats not something you should be ashamed of...its something that _happened_ to you"

My head was singing now, and I honestly didn't know what to say...raped? I had no way of processing this. Emily's gay...even before she met me...she doesn't do cock...so how would she...when would she? I stuttered just one word.

"How?"

Her eyes were full of fat tears again, and I hated the way my heart was pounding at the same time as my over analytical brain was trying to make sense of what she's just said.

"It was my fault" she said simply "My fault"

"Fuck off Ems" I spat..."No one is to blame but the fucker who did it to you...who was it...do we know him?"

She shook her head sadly.

"No...and I'm not going to tell you who it was...it wasn't anyone we know. But it was the reason..well one of the reasons I tried to...you know..this time"

I shook my head to clear it, but it didn't work. All sorts of possibilities, scenarios and horrific images were tumbling round my brain. Emily...raped... were the only words that repeated again and again.

"I need to tell you Naomi" she said, lip trembling and cheeks streaked with tears. "I need to tell you because you need to know how low I was when you left...low enough to let myself be used by other people"

If I had felt guilty before, it was nothing to what I felt now. Raped...used...Emily.

"OK" I said in a hushed voice..."I don't know how I'm gonna react...but if you need to tell me...I'll listen. I love you Emily"

She nodded in gratitude and pulled her tee back on. I did the same. It didn't seem right talking about stuff like this naked. I needed the thin moral protection of clothing. I sat up and watched as she did the same. We sat side by side, not looking at each other as she started.

"I was on a night out...one of a long, long list of nights out. Half bottle of vodka, two spliffs and an E tab...just to get me started. Couple of beers in the pub with Katie, before she fucked off with some guy. Usual stuff"

Jesus, half a bottle, weed and E's just to get out of the door...she had really been caning it.

"You already know about the randoms...and I'm not gonna say any more about that...it was as if I was deadening the pain, letting them use me...but this night was different...very different..."

 _Emily_

 _The lights were dazzling. The cocktails on top of the vodka would have usually floored me, even with my new tolerance to industrial quantities of booze, but one of the randoms I'd finger fucked in a toilet at another club obviously fancied another go on me. She sidled up to me when I was ordering another margarita and slipped a packet in my hand._

" _Special Brew" she winked "Fucks your head completely and sets your cunt on fire...just the job" she leered "I'll come back in 15 minutes, when you're rushing...the toilets in here are big enough to screw properly in babe"_

 _I looked at her uncertainly. I couldn't even remember her face. They were just a succession of hopeful, available girls with busy fingers nowadays. I vaguely remembered that this one had insisted on going down on me..which wasn't strictly necessary, especially in view of the damp toilet floor, but fuck it, I needed drugs, and she was offering._

 _I made a side trip to the ladies room and snorted a good line of grey white powder up my nostril. The buzz hit immediately. My teeth started to grind, my neck muscles tightened and I felt a butterfly sensation in the pit of my stomach. Fuck, this was good stuff._

 _Ten minutes later, I was flying. The colours of the spinning light ball on the ceiling were rippling, bending and curving all around. I could see a few amused faces round me. Not everyone had the benefit of this chemical enhancement to their night out, but most of the clubbers knew I was as high as a human being could get._

 _Suddenly there were arms around me from the back...feminine arms, so I relaxed into them. A knee pressed between my legs and a sly hand came round to cup one of my tits. I didn't have a bra on tonight, just a tight black singlet top, so the sensations her hand produced, squeezing and thumbing me, gave me a jolt of pure desire. The random had been right, I was gonna get fucked tonight..and by the feeling of the continuing rush, I hadn't even reached the plateau yet. I ground my arse back into her crotch and she chuckled dirtily in my ear._

" _Oh yeah" she said hotly "I'm gonna get you naked tonight babe"_

 _I shivered. Getting naked with a stranger wasn't something I normally did **this** easily. A grope, hot open mouthed kisses and thong pushed aside for busy fingers, that was usually enough. With enough MDMA in me, I was easy to get off. _

_Then there was a guy in front of me, looking lustfully at the girl and me grinding together._

" _Get lost, loser" I slurred "I've pulled..."_

 _He just grinned and then reached past me to stroke the girls face. I hadn't even seen her yet, so I turned my head to see her reaction._

 _She leaned into me harder and pinched my nipple hard...which made my cunt clench even more..._

" _Don't be unfriendly" she whispered into my ear "That's only Josh..he's OK"_

" _I'm gay" I said stupidly. I don't suppose she needed that pearl of wisdom, after what she'd been doing to me for five minutes._

" _Thats cool" she said brightly ""I'm bi...and I want to take you home with me"_

 _That bit I could live with. She was very pretty in a pale, goth kind of way. Big tits...I had felt them in my back, and a pretty, if narrow face framed with black hair. If it had been any other night, I would have shaken my head at her suggestion about getting naked, grabbed her hand and taken her into the toilets and...taken her._

 _But tonight, the super strength powder had fucked with my reason. I was still rushing like mad and every touch she placed on my bare arms and neck lit another fire inside me. I wanted sex...simple as that...and she was offering it._

" _Josh will give us a lift...won't you babe" she drawled, looking at the tall skinny guy opposite us._

 _So fifteen minutes later, we're all stumbling in through the door of a basement flat in St Pauls._

 _Five minutes after that, with Josh fuck knows where, I'm half naked on a double bed with Jessie (she told me her name on the way over here) tearing the rest of each others clothes off. I was right about the tits...really big for her frame, and with my super heightened libido, I was having a field day playing with them. I sucked and I licked and she reciprocated. I found myself on my back, with Jessie between my legs, head down, busy tongue deep inside me. My first orgasm shook my body hard, making my fucking teeth rattle. But still the MDMA kept coming. The alcohol had completely worn off, I was just riding high on pure chemical euphoria. I'd never taken anything this powerful._

 _When I came down from my climax, I flipped her over and kissed my way down her body. She tasted good...hot and wet, and the moans she started making showed me that being fucked on drugs hadn't affected my technique. I wanted to make her come, and she did._

 _Ten minutes later, with just the faint glow from the pink table lamp illuminating the room we were just laying there, idly stroking each other. I was almost ready for round three, and she was stealing sideways glances at me which said she wouldn't say no. We turned to each other and started kissing._

 _When I first felt the weight of someone else on the bed, I tried to turn back to see who it was, but Jessie gripped me in her arms and stopped me._

" _Shhh" she said, kissing my neck and sending another volley of lust through my synapses. I shuddered, but the ecstasy was overpowering, I needed her to keep touching me..._

 _The first I knew that Josh was the visitor was when I felt his hands parting my thighs. I knew who it was straight away, but I couldn't seem to make my limbs obey the tiny part of my brain that was resisting._

" _N...No..." I stuttered "I'm gay...I don't want...no"_

 _Again Jessie shushed me_

" _Quiet baby" she laughed "Josh needs to get his reward for just watching us up to now...don't you babe?"_

 _I heard a grunt behind me and then the shocking invasion of his thick fingers inside me. I was so wet from Jessie, they slid right in._

" _Don't...please Josh" I begged, but the two of them chuckled darkly at me feeble attempts to prevent him putting himself inside me._

 _When his cock replaced his fingers, I cried out in pain. He was much bigger than JJ had been...much bigger than the dildos Naomi and I had experimented briefly with... thicker too. I writhed in Jessie's arms, but she held on tight. I realised that I was helpless. He was going to fuck me, and she was helping him._

 _Another rush of MDMA shook my body, and I relaxed...I couldn't fight them both..it was hopeless. I let him bury himself completely in me._

" _That's my girl" Jessie smirked "Just let him do his thing...he's quite good at it actually...been fucking me for months, haven't you babe?"_

 _The man behind us grunted in agreement and began to pump in and out of me. He gripped my hips for purchase and started to hump me hard. Jessie sucked my neck and fingered me while he did it. I wish I could say my body didn't respond...but the MDMA was still overwhelming. I hated what he was doing, but with both of them going at me, I could hear my own moans and gasps encouraging them, I didn't mean to...but my body wasn't listening._

 _When he'd had his fill of fucking me from behind, they flipped me over onto my back and he moved between my legs and reinserted himself roughly. Jessie laid beside me, playing with my tits and kissing my neck while he pounded me. I didn't come...even with the added stimulus of the chemicals, but after he'd gasped and pulled out of me, I felt warm wetness splatter across my chest and neck. I guess he got his satisfaction anyway._

 _They stood by the bed as I laid there, stunned by what had happened to me, then I heard the click and flash of a phone camera. I tried to roll over, to cover up, but it was too late._

" _Time to go little red" Jessie said coolly as I hugged myself defensively "Fun's over. There's a cab rank half a mile away. Your clothes are on the floor._

 _With that, they left the room and I could hear them laughing in the next room. I dressed silently, wiping myself clean with my own underwear. Walking through the lounge, they never even looked up...just sat side by side on the tatty couch, skinning up a spliff. I felt like the lowest form of prostitute._

 _It took me a while to get home...I was the wrong side of the city, and the cab took ages, but it didn't matter, I was numb. When I got in, I showered for nearly an hour, but I never felt clean._

 _The next day, I bought a litre bottle of vodka, and stole my mothers supply of sleeping tablets. I went to the park and took them all._

XXX

When Emily had finished I had tears in my eyes too. I just hugged her as she shook and cried. Christ...how was I ever gonna put her back together again after this fuckery?


	7. Chapter 7

Naomi

In the end, it all turned out rather fucking wonderful, as my mother used to say. Its been three years now, and Emily and I are still together and still stupidly in love. She moved up to London with me, when I went back to Goldsmith's and my mum and Kieran fronted the ridiculously high deposit we needed to rent a flat together. There was no way I was going to let Emily stay with anyone else, she was still pretty fragile at first, but the alternative, of sneaking her into my student hall was totally impractical. The hall porter might have been susceptible to a glimpse of Katies nipples, but he was never gonna fall for that trick nightly. We needed, no _I_ needed us to be together permanently, and a small one bed flat near the Elephant and Castle was the best we could come up with. It was on the top floor, had rising damp and falling plaster, but it was ours, at least as long as my mum kept sending the £1000 a month to rent it.

Exorbitant? Yep...but thats London for you. Stupidly high house prices, fuelled by the sort of people that mindlessly vote Conservative every time, and even higher rents, made possible by landlords having an inexhaustible supply of tenants who couldn't afford to buy a place of their own. Its called supply and demand, yeah? Well, it is, if you're a merchant banker or a landed Tory gent...

Sorry about the soapbox, but politicians get away with saying that house price inflation is a good thing...well, I suppose it is if you actually have a house to start with, but people like us...me and Ems...are never going to be able to save up £100,000 deposit for a rat hole in Brixton, let alone afford the £1500 a month mortgage. Bastards...

But enough about money grabbing landlords and venal politicians. I got my first class degree at Goldsmiths. Emily enrolled in South Bank Uni, and finished her studies too. She;s going to be an English teacher, and she'll be brilliant at at. We moved out of London straight after she graduated. Too fucking expensive, and too fucking..I dunno, London, I suppose. We enjoyed the night-life, at both Uni's student bars and further afield. Being two gay girls in the capital wasn't a big deal...Bristol was far more provincial about things like that. We didn't stand out as much there, although we got the usual sexist taunts now and again. Guys, on general principle, don't like the unattainable or obviously unfuckable, and as I think Emily and I had had our one and only encounters with male erections early on in our sex lives, we were firmly off limits.. We were, and are completely in love, and thats enough. So we learned to blow them off casually, and for the most part, they listened and backed off. When they didn't...I still have the Campbell death glare, and it works pretty good.

Effy offered to let us live at her house in Bristol when we decided to move back there. Her mum had more or less left home, and was living with the guy she worked with, and had an affair with, when she got divorced from Effys Dad. They signed the house over to Eff and Tony, but as Tony was abroad, in Canada, and not likely to come back except for Christmas and stuff, there was acres of room. Ems and I moved into Anthea's old bedroom and Effy stayed in hers. Her drug fuelled hedonistic days were over, and she was seeing a guy called Mike from Bath, where she stayed most weekends. Pretty perfect really. My mum was delighted to see me back in town, and as she loved Emily as much as me, we spent a lot of time in each others houses. Emily's mum, of course, wasn't such an easy nut to crack. She tolerated me rather than anything else, but to be honest, that was good enough for me. I had no wish to suffer beetroot and artichoke soup ever again...I always made sure I was the seventh invited guest. Six seater table...?

Katie turned out to be the biggest surprise. Would you believe she's my best mate nowadays (apart from Ems, of course)? Well, its true. Her homophobia was always a bit of a device she put together to hate me with. Once she got over the fact that Ems and I were an item, and that I had no wish to break their twin bond, she changed completely. She'd seen how Emily had suffered being apart from me, and she had first hand experience of how I'd been utterly broken without her sister. So, after Emily and I moved in together in London, she'd been a regular weekend visitor, all through Uni. Of course, she cut a swathe through the male population of South London, just as she had in Bristol at college, but she's calmed down a lot now. Still has a strange preference for animal pattern outfits, but a bit more restrained than the lurid pink leopard print she used to go for.

She even had a brief, but I hear happy, 'experimental' period of her own. When she came up to our flat one July afternoon in the summer break with this stunning curvy redhead called Maisie, Emily and I nearly collapsed with surprise. Turned out to be just a holiday fling...but really? Katie Fitch, tipping the velvet? Civilizations have fallen for less.

I cornered her alone in our tiny kitchen when Emily was chatting to Maisie in the lounge.

"You're having a fucking laugh Katie... _aren't_ you?" I said in amazement "Please tell me this isn't what it looks like?"

She turned to me with a smirk and flushed slightly.

"Thought I'd try and find out what all the fuss was about. We met in Selfridges a couple of weeks ago...and got chatting...and it sort of...grew" she grinned "Problem?"

"Not at all" I goggled back "So, Katiekins...now that you're a proper 'sister'...how is _it_ with...Maisie?"

She ducked her head and looked at her shoes.

"Fucking good at the moment...but don't be getting any ideas Campbell...its early days...I'm not about to start wearing dungarees and Doc Martens"

I couldn't resist, well you can't blame me, can you?

"So now that you've tried muff...will you admit the sex is way better than with guys...and...err...does Maisie like to..."

I leaned over and whispered a long, filthy and descriptive sentence into Katies startled ear.

She jumped away from me like she had been scalded, a look of horror on her pretty face, which just made me double up with laughter.

"You, Campbell, are a degenerate perv. I have no idea _what_ my fucking sister sees in you. Keep your strange sexual habits to yourself, OK?"

I raised my eyebrow and we both giggled for a bit. Like I said, Katie has changed. A _lot_.

I started to carry the tray of drinks back to the lounge, but she stopped me with one hand on my arm, just before I got to the door. She leaned over and whispered in _my_ ear.

"For your information, Naomi...she fucks me royally, all night long, with and without battery powered help...and...now Maisie has a new camcorder...so afterwards we have some interesting evenings in, watching TV together..."

I nearly dropped the fucking tray and all the glasses. _Bitch_. I looked at her as if she'd grown two heads. Fuck me...if things had got that far, me and Ems needed a trip down to Anne Summers, pronto.

I think Katie took that round on a knock out.

It fizzled out, her and Maisie, after the summer break. Katies with a guy called Curt at the moment, but I live in hope...once you've tried it and all that...

But now things are great. I got a job with the Post, writing articles on local politics, Emily's finishing her teacher training course, and things couldn't be better. We live together, laugh together and love together. The past is the past. The three years we were away has let the dust settle in Bristol. The old places look strange now...Alfred Road seems like a house I only vaguely remember. My mum sold the place while we were in London and bought her old house back. I loved that little yellow chalet, and Ems and I feel more at home there than the other house. Too many bad memories of that blue door...

My old bedroom is pretty much the same as it was, just the wallpaper has changed, and my mum did a good job making it familiar. I'm never going to live there any more but, its nice to sit in the kitchen and remember how things were. The endless house guests, the chalk boards and weird wall decorations...laying on the bedroom floor with Emily, pretending not to know what lesbians do...Memories...most of them happy ones. I'll settle for that.

Cook is out now...and seeing Karen McClair again. I don't think that Freddies dad is too impressed, but they're happy together. Cook started up his own courier service in town, and I think its doing well. I strongly suspect that some of the packages being delivered aren't strictly kosher, but hey ho...Cook was never gonna change _that_ much. Uncle Keith died...which was sad, but Cook got his start up money from the sale of the Fishponds Tavern. We never go in there any more. Its a fucking gastro pub now...awful tiny food on huge plates and braying, wine swilling, clientèle. Poor Keith would be horrified. Progress, huh?

So thats us. Emily Fitch and Naomi Campbell. Was it all worth it? The heartache, the breakups, the tears, loneliness and the pain?

Fucking right it was. I got my girl, and thats all I ever really wanted. Sometime next year, after Emily qualifies, we're going to get married. Then Emily wants to start a family...and I _always_ give Emily what she wants. And you can take that any way you like!

End

Thanks for reading!


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